
Class ^ . 

Rank N\^r 



SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT 



'*) 



ON THE 



PHILOSOPHY 



OF 



DISCOVERY. 



(Cambrittse : 



PBINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M. 
AT THE TTNIVEBSITY PBESS. 



/ 



ON THE 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY, 



CHAPTERS HISTORICAL AND CRITICAL; 



WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D. 

MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AXD 
CORRESPOXDIXG MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE. 



INCLrDES'G THE COMPLETION OF TflE THIRD EDITIOIS" 
OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE INDUCTIVE SCIENCES. 




AAMHAAIA EX0NTE2 AIAAnSOYSIX AAAHA0I2. 



LONDON: 
JOHN W. PAEKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 
1860.7- 



n^^ 



The following are the latest editions of the series of works 
which has been published connected with the present subject : 

History of the Inductive Sciences, 3 Vols. 1857. 
History of Scientific Ideas, 2 Yols. 1858. 
Novum Organon Renovatum, i Vol. 1858. 
On the Philosophy of Discovery, i Vol. i860. 

To the History of the Inductive Sciences are appended two 
Indexes (in Vol. i.), an Index of Proper Names, and an Index 
of Technical Terms. These Indexes, and the Tables of Contents 
of the other works, will enable the reader to refer to any person 
or event included in this series. 



PREFACE. 



rpHE two works which I entitled The History of 
the Inductive Sciences, and The Philosophy of the 
Inductive Sciences, were intended to present to the 
reader a view of the steps by which those portions 
of human knowledge which are held to be most 
certain and stable have been acquired, and of the 
philosophical principles which are involved in those 
steps. Each of these steps was a scientific Discovery, 
in which a new conception was applied in order to 
bind together observed facts. And though the con- 
junction of the observed facts was in each case an 
example of logical Induction, it Was not the induc- 
tive process merely, but the novelty of the result in 
each case which gave its peculiar character to the 
History ; and the Philosophy at which I aimed was 
not the Philosophy of Induction, but the Philosophy 
oj Discovery. In the present edition I have de- 
scribed this as my object in my Title. 



VI PKEFACE. 

A great part of the present volume consists of 
chapters which composed the twelfth Book of the 
Philosophy in former editions, which Book was then 
described as a ' Review of Opinions on the nature of 
Knowledge and the Method of seeking it.' I have 
added to this part several new chapters, on Plato, 
Aristotle, the Arabian Philosophers, Francis Bacon, 
Mr. Mill, Mr. Mansel, the late Sir William Hamil- 
ton, and the German philosophers Kant, Fichte, 
Schelling and Hegel. I might, if time had allowed, 
have added a new chapter on Boger Bacon, founded 
on his Opus Minus and other works, recently published 
for the first time under the du^ection of the Master of 
the Rolls; a valuable contribution to the history of 
philosophy. But the review of this work would not 
materially alter the estimate of Roger Bacon which I 
had derived from the Opus Majus. 

But besides these historical and critical surveys of 
the philosophy of others, I have ventured to intro- 
duce some new views of my own; namely, views 
which bear upon the philosophy of religion. I have 
done so under the conviction that no philosophy of 
the universe can satisfy the minds of thoughtful men 
which does not deal with such questions as inevi- 
tably force themselves on our notice, respecting the 
Author and the Object of the universe ; and also 
under the conviction that every philosophy of the 



PREFACE. Vll 

universe which has any consistency must sug- 
gest answers, at least conjectural, to such ques- 
tions. ISTo Cosmos is complete from which the ques- 
tion of Deity is excluded; and all Cosmology has 
a side turned towards Theology. Though I am aware 
therefore how easy it is, on this subject, to give 
offence and to incur obloquy, I have not thought it 
right to abstain from following out my philosophical 
principles to their results in this department of specu- 
lation. The results do not differ materially from 
those at which many pious and thoughtful speculators 
have arrived in previous ages of the world; though 
they have here, as seems to me, something of novelty 
in their connection with the philosophy of science. 
But this point I willingly leave to the calm de- 
cision of competent judges. 

I have added in an Appendix various Essays, 
previously published at different times, which may 
serve perhaps to illustrate some points of the history 
and philosophy of science. 



TbINITT LOEGE, 

February 8, 1856. 



ON 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 



CONTENTS. 

The chapters marked thiis • appear now for the first time. 
The chapters marked thus t have appeared in other works. 

Chap. I. iNTKODucTioif. 

Chap. II. Plato. 

Chap. III. * Additional Eemaeks on Plato. 



I. 

1. 


The JJoctrme ol ideas. 

The Doctrine of the One and Many. 


3. 


The notion of the nature and aim of Science. 


4- 


The Survey of existing Sciences. 


5- 


The Constitution of the human Mind. 


Chap. TV. 


Aristotle. 


Chap. V. * 


Additional Eemarks on Aristotle. 


I. 


Induction. 


2. 


Invention. 


3- 


The One in the Many. 


4- 


The " Five Words." 


5. 


Aristotle's contribution to the Physical Sciences 


6. 


Aristotle's Astronomy. 


7. 


Aristotle on Classification. 


8. 


F. Bacon on Aristotle. 


9- 


Discovery of Causes. 


10. 


Plato and Aristotle. 


11. 


Aristotle against Plato's Ideas. 



f 



X CONTENTS. 

Chap. VI. The Later Greeks. 

Chap. VII. The Eomans, 

Chap. VIII. 'Arabian Philosophers. 

Chap. IX. The Schoolmen of the Middle Ages. 

Chap. X. The Innovators op the Middle Ages. 
Raymond Lully, 

Chap. XI. The Innovators op the Middle Ages — 
continued. 
Eoger Bacon. 

Chap. XII. The Eevival op Platonism. 

1. Causes of Delay in the Advance of Knowledge. 

2. Causes of Progi-ess. 

3. Hermolaus Barbarus, &c. 

4. Nicolaus Cusanus. 

5. Manilius Ficinus. 

6. Francis Patricius. 

7. Picus, Agrippa, &c. 

8. Paracelsus, Fludd, &c. 



Chap. XIII. 


The Theoretical Reformers op Science 


I. 


Bernardinus Telesius. 


2. 


Thomas Campanella. 


3- 


Andrew Csesalpinus. 


4. 


Giordano Bruno. 


5. 


Peter Ramus. 


6. 


The Reformers in General. 


7. 


Melancthon. 


Chap. XIV. 


The Practical Reformers op Science. 


I. 


Character of the Practical Reformers*. 


1. 


Leonardo da Vinci. 


3. 


Copernicus. 


4. 


Fabricius. 


S- 


Maurolycus. 


6. 


Benedetti. 


7. 


GUbert. 



CONTENTS. XI 



8. 


Galileo. 


9- 


Kepler. 


lO. 


Tycho. 


Chap. XV. 


Fbancis Bacon. 


I. 


(I.) General Eeniarks. 


2. 


Common estimate of him. 


3- 


We consider only Piiysical Science. 


4- 


He is placed at the head of the change : 


S- 


And justly. 


6. 


(II.) He proclaims a Nexo Era 


7- 


(III.) By a Change of Method; 


8. 


Including successive Steps ; 


9- 


Gradually ascending. 


lO. 


(IV.) He contrasts the Old and the New Method. 


II. 


(V.) Has he neglected Ideas? 


12. 


No. 


13- 


Examples of Ideas treated by him. 


14. 


He has failed in applying his Method 


15. 


(VI.) To the Cause of Heat. 


16. 


He seeks Causes before Laws. 


17. 


(VII.) His Technical Form looHhless. 


18. 


He is confused by words. 


19. 


His "^Instances." 


20. 


Contain some good Suggestions. 


21. 


(VIII.) His ''Idols." 


22. 


(IX.) His view of Utility. 


23. 


(X.) His Hopefulness. 


24. 


(XI.) His Piety, 


Chap. XVI. 


* Additional Kemakks on Francis Bacon. 



1. Mr. Ellis's views. 

2. Mr. Spedding's views. 

Chap. XVII. From Bacon to Newton. 

1. Harvey. 

2. Descartes. 

3. Gassendi. 

4 . Actual Progress in Science. 



Ii 



m 



|: 



* 



Xll CONTENTS. 

5. Otto Guericke, &c. 

6. Hooke. 

7. E-oyal Society. 

8. Bacon's New Atalantis. 

9. Cowley. 
10. Barrow. 

Chap. XVIII. Newton. 

1. Animating efifect of his Discoveries. 

2. They confirm Bacon's views. 

3. Newton shuns Hypotheses. 

4. His views of Inductive Philosophy. 

5. His ''Rules of Philosophizing." 

6. The First Rule. 

7. What is a * * True Cause " 1 

8. Such as are real ? 

9. Or <Aose which are proved? 

10. Use of the Rule. 

11. Eule otherwise expressed. 

12. The Second Rule. 

13. What are Events "of the same kind" ? 

14. The Third Rule: 

15. Not safe. 

16. The Fourth Rule. 

17. Occult Qualities. 

18. Ridiculed. 

19. Distinction of Laws and Causes. 

Chap. XIX. Locke and his French Followers. 

1. Cause of Locke's popularity. 

2. Sensational School. 

3. His inconsistencies. 

4. Condillac, &c. 

5. Importance of Language. 

6. Ground of this. 

7. The Encyclopedists. 

8. Helvetius. 

9. Value of Arts. 

10. Tendency to Reaction. 



CONTENTS. XIU 

Chap. XX. The Eeaction against the Sensational 
School. 

I. " Nisi intellectus ipse." 

1. Price's " Ee view." 

3. Stewart defends Price. 

4. Arclibishop Wliately. 

5. Laromigui^re. 

6. M. Cousin. 

7. M. Ampfere. 

8. His Classification of Sciences. 

9. Kant's Reform of Philosophy. 
10. Its Effect in Germany. 

Chap. XXI. Further Advance of the Sensational 
School. 
M. Auguste Comte. 

1. M. Comte on three States of Science. 

2. M, Comte rejects the Search of Causes. 

3. Causes in Physics. 

4. Causes in other Sciences. 

5. M. Comte's Practical Philosophy. 

6. M. Comte on Hypotheses. 

7. M. Comte's Classification of Sciences. 

Chap, XXII. +Me. Mill's Logic. 

(I.) What is Induction? §§ i— 14. 

(II.) Induction or Description, §§ 15 — 23. 

(III.) In Discovery a new Conception is introduced, 

§§ 24—37. I 

(IV.) Mr. Mill's Four Methods of Inquiry, §§ 38 
—40. 
(Y.) His Examples, §§ 41—48. . 

(YI.) Mr. Mill against Hypotheses, §§ 49, 50. ' 

(Vn.) Against prediction of Facts, §§ 51 — 53. 
(VIII.) Newton's Vera Causa, §§ 54, 55. 

(IX.) Successive Generalizations, §§ 56 — 62. i 

(X.) Mr. Mill's Hope from Deductions, §§ 63 — 67. 
(XL) Fimdamental opposition of our Doctrines, §§ 68 

-71. . . 

(XII.) Absurdities in Mr. Mill's Logic, §§ 7^—74. f' 



f 



fl 



I 



XIV CONTENTS. 

Chap, XXIII. * Political Economy as an Inductive 
Science. 

1. Moral Sciences. 

2. Political Economy. 

3. Wages, Profits, and Hents. 

4. Premature Generalizations. 

5. Correction of these by Induction — Rent. 

6. „ Wages. 

7. „ Population. 

Chap. XXIV. t Modern German Philosophy. 

(I.) Science is the Idealization of Facts, §§ i — 8. 
(II.) Successive German Philosophies. 

Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, §§ 9—16. 

Chap. XXV. fTnE Fundamental Antithesis as it exists 
IN THE Moral World. 

Moral Progress is the Realization of Ideas. 

Chap. XXVI, *0p the "Philosophy of the Infinite." 

God is Eternal. 

Chap. XXVII. *Sir William Hamilton on Inertia and 
Weight. 
I. Primary and Secondary Qualities. 
1, Meaning of the Distinction. 

3. Sir W. Hamilton adds " Secundo-Primary." 

4. Inertia. 

5. Sir W. Hamilton's arguments and reply. 

6. Gravity. 

Sir W. Hamilton's arguments and reply. 

Chap. XXVIII. f Influence of German Systems of Phi- 
LosorHY IN Britain. 
Stewart on Kant. 
Mr. G. H. Lewes on Kant. 
Mr. Mansel on Kant. 
His objection to our Fundamental Ideas, and 

Reply. 
New Axioms are possible. 
Mr. Mansel's Kantianism. 
Axioms are not from experience. 





I. 




2. 


4 


-6. 


7- 


■10. 


II— 


■13. 


H- 


-i6. 



I 



CONTENTS. XV 

Chap. XXIX. *Necessaey Truth is Peogressive. 
Objections considered. 



Chap. XXX 


*The Theological Bearing op the Philo 




SOPHY OF Discovery. 


1—4. 


How can necessary truths be actual ? 


5,6. 


Small extent of necessary truth. 


7. 


How did things come to be as they are ? 


8. 


View of the Theist. 


9—12. 


Is this Platonism? 


13. 


Idea of Time. 


14, 15. 


Ideas of Force and Matter. 


16. 


Creation of Matter. 


17. 


Platonic Ideas. 


18—21. 


Idea of Kind. 


22. 


Idea of Substance. 


n- 


Idea of Final Cause. 


24, 25. 


Human immeasurably inferior to Divine. 


26. 


Science advrances towards the Divine Ideas. 


27. 


Eecapitulation. 



Chap. XXXI. * Man's Knowledge of God. 
I, 2. Opinions. 

3. From Nature we learn something of God. 
4—6. Though but little. 

7, 8. From ourselves we learn something concerning 
God. 
9 — II. Objections answered. 

12. Creation. 

13. End of the World. 

14. Moral and Theological views enter. 

Chap. XXXII. * Analogies of Physical and Eeligious 
Philosophy. 
I, 2. Idealization of Facts and Eealization of Ideas ; 
3, 4. Both imperfect. 
5, 6. Divine Ideas perfect. 
7 — 9. Eealization of Divine Love. 
10 — 13. Realization of Divine Justice. 

14. Analogy of Physical and Moral Philosophy. 



f 



ft 



XVI CONTENTS. 

15, 16. Supernatural Beginning, Middle, and End indi- 
cated. 
17. Suggestion of a Future State. 
18 — 20. Confirmation from the Intellect of Man. 
2 1. From the Moral Nature of Man. 



APPENDIX. 

PAOS 

Append. A. Of the Platonic Theory of Ideas . 403 

B. On Plato's Survey of the Sciences . 417 
BB. On Plato's Notion of Dialectic . . 429 

C. Of the Intellectual Powers according 

TO Plato 440 

D. Criticism of Aristotle's Account of 

Induction 449 

E. On the Fundamental Antithesis of 

Philosophy 462 

F. Eemarks on a Eeview of the Philo- 

sophy OF the Inductive Sciences . 482 

G. On the Transformation of Hypotheses 

IN THE History of Science . . .492 

H. On Hegel's Criticism of Newton's 

Principia 504 

Appendix to the Memoir on Hegel's Criti- 
cism of Newton's Principia . . '513 

K. Demonstration that all Matter is 

Heavy 522 



f' 



ON THE 



PHILOSOPHY 



OP 



DISCOVERY. 






War' nicht das Auge sonnenhaft 
Wie konnten wir das Licht erblicken ? 
Lebt' nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft 
Wie konnte uns das Gottliche entziicken ? 

Goethe. 

Were nothing sunlike in the Eye 
How could we Light itself descry ? . 
Were nothing godlike in the Mind 
How could we God in Nature find? 



CHAPTER 1. 
INTRODUCTION. 



BY the examination of the elements of human 
thought in which I have been engaged, and by 
a consideration of the history of the most clear and 
certain parts of our knowledge, I have been led to 
doctrines respecting the progress of that exact and 
systematic knowledge which we call Science ; and 
these doctrines I have endeavoured to lay before the 
reader in the History of the Sciences and of Scientific 
Ideas. The questions on which I have thus ventured 
to pronounce have had a strong interest for man from 
the earliest period of his intellectual progress, and 
have been the subjects of lively discussion and bold 
speculation in every age. I conceive that in the doc- 
trines to which these researches have conducted us, 
we have a far better hope that we possess a body of 
permanent truths than the earlier essays on the same 
subjects could furnish. For we have not taken ou/ 
examples of knowledge at hazard, as earlier specula- 
tors did, and were almost compelled to do; but have 
drawn our materials from the vast store of unques- 
tioned truths which modern science offers to us : and 
we have formed our judgment concerning the nature 
and progress of knowledge by considering what such 
science is, and how it has reached its present condition. 
But though we have thus pursued our speculations 
concerning knowledge with advantages which earlier 
writers did not possess, it is still both interesting and 
instructive for us to regard the opinions upon this 
subject which have been delivered by the philosophers 
of past times. It is especially interesting to see some 
of the truths which we have endeavoured to expound, 
gradually dawning in men's minds, and assuming the 

B2 



* 



H»' 



4 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

clear and permanent form in which we can now con- 
template them. I shall therefore, in the ensuing 
chapters, pass in review many of the opinions of the 
writers of various ages concerning the mode by which 
man best acquires the truest knowledge; and I shall 
endeavour, as we proceed, to appreciate the real value 
of such judgments, and their place in the progress of 
sound philosophy. 

In this estimate of the opinions of others, I shall 
be guided by those general doctrines which I have, as 
I trust, established in the histories already published. 
And without attempting here to give any summary 
of these doctrines, I may remark that there are two 
main principles by which speculations on such sub- 
jects in all ages are connected and related to each 
other ; namely, the opposition of Ideas and Sensations^ 
and the distinction of practical and speculative know- 
ledge. The opposition of Ideas and Sensations is ex- 
hibited to us in the antithesis of Theory and Fact, 
which are necessarily considered as distinct and of 
opposite natures, and yet necessarily identical, and 
constituting Science by their identity. In like man- 
ner, although practical knowledge is in substance 
identical with speculative, (for all knowledge is specu- 
lation,) there is a distinction between the two in their 
history, and in the subjects by which they are exem- 
plified, which distinction is quite essential in judging 
of the philosophical views of the ancients. The 
alternatives of identity and diversity, in these two 
antitheses, — the successive separp.tion, opposition, and 
reunion of principles which thus arise, — have pro- 
duced, (as they may easily be imagined capable of 
doing,) a long and varied series of systems concerning 
the nature of knowledge ; among which we shall have 
to guide our course by the aid of the views already 
presented. 

I am far from undertaking, or wishing, to review 
the whole series of opinions which thus come under 
our notice ; and I do not even attempt to examine all 
the principal authors who have wiitten on such sub- 
jects. I merely wish to select some of the most con- 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

siderable forms whicli such opinions have assumed, 
and to point out in some measure the progress of truth 
from age to age. In doing this, I can only endeavour 
to seize some of the most prominent features of each 
time and of each step, and I must pass rapidly from 
classical antiquity to those which we have called the 
dark ages, and from them to modern times. At each 
of these periods the modifications of opinioti, and the 
speculations with which they were connected, formed 
a vast and tangled maze, the byways of which our 
plan does not allow us to enter. We shall esteem 
ourselves but too fortunate, if we can discover the 
single track by which ancient led to modern philo- 
sophy. 

I must also repeat that my survey of philosophical 
writers is here confined to this one point, — their opi- 
nions on the nature of knowledge and the method of 
science. I with some efibrt avoid entering upon other 
parts of the philosophy of those authors of whom I 
speak; I knowingly pass by those portions of their 
speculations which are in many cases the most inter- 
esting and celebrated; — their opinions concerning the 
human soul, the Divine Governor of the world, the 
foundations or leading doctrines of politics, religion, 
and general philosophy. I am desirous that my 
reader should bear this in mind, since he must other- 
wise be ofiended with the scanty and partial view 
which I give in this jjlace of the philosophers whom 
I enumerate. 



I 



CHAPTER II. 

Plato. 



THERE would be small advantage in beginning our 
examination earlier than the period of the Socratic 
School at Athens; for although the spirit of inquiry 
on such subjects had awakened in Greece at an earlier 
period, and although the peculiar aptitude of the 
Grecian mind for such researches had shown itself 
repeatedly in subtle distinctions and acute reasonings, 
all the positive results of these early efforts were con- 
tained in a more definite form in the reasonings of the 
Platonic age. Before that time, the Greeks did not 
possess plain and familiar examples of exact know- 
ledge, such as the truths of Arithmetic, Geometry, 
Astronomy and Optics became in the school of Plato ; 
nor were the antitheses of which we spoke above, so 
distinctly and fully unfolded as we find them in Plato's 
works. 

The question which hinges upon one of these anti- 
theses, occupies a prominent place in several of the 
Platonic dialogues; namely, whether our knowdedge 
be obtained by means of Sensation or of Ideas. One 
of the doctrines which Plato most earnestly inculcated 
upon his countrymen was, that we do not knoio con- 
cerning sensible objects, but concerning ideas. The 
first attempts of the Greeks at metaphysical analysis 
had given rise to a school which maintained that 
material objects are the only realities. In opposition 
to this, arose another school, which taught that ma- 
terial objects have no permanent reality, but are ever 
waxing and waning, constantly changing their sub- 
stance. "And hence," as Aristotle says\ "arose the 
doctrine of ideas which the Platonists held. For they 



1 Mctaph. xiL 4. 



PLATO. 7 

assented to the opinion of Heraclitus, that all sensible 
objects are in a constant state of flux. So that if 
there is to be any knowledge and science, it must 
be concerning some permanent natures, different from 
the sensible natures of objects; for there can be no 
permanent science respecting that which is perpetu- 
ally changing. It happened that Socrates turned his 
speculations to the moral virtues, and was the first 
philosopher who endeavoured to give universal defi- 
nitions of such matters. He wished to reason sys- 
tematically, and therefore he tried to establish defi- 
nitions, for definitions are the basis of systematic 
reasoning. There are two things which may justly 
be looked upon as steps in philosophy due to Socrates; 
inductive reasonings, and universal definitions; — both 
of them steps which belong to the foundations of 
science. Socrates, however, did not make universals, 
or definitions separable from the objects; but his fol- 
lowers separated them, and these essences they termed 
Ideasr And the same account is given by other 
writers ^ " Some existences are sensible, some intel- 
jligible : and according to Plato, if we wish to under- 
stand the principles of things, we must first separate 
the ideas from the things, such as the ideas of Simi- 
larity, Unity, Number, Magnitude, Position, Motion: 
second, that we must assume an absolute Fair, Good, 
Just, and the like : third, that we must consider the 
ideas of relation, as Knowledge, Power: recollecting 
that the Things which we perceive have this or that 
appellation appKed to them because they partake of 
this or that Idea ; those things being just which par- 
ticipate in the idea of The Just, those being beautiful, 
which contain the idea of The Beautiful." And many 
of the arguments by which this doctrine was main- 
tained are to be found in the Platonic dialogTies. Thus 
the opinion that true knowledge consists in sensation, 
which had been asserted by Protagoras and others, is 
refuted in the Thecetetus: and, we may add, so vic- 
toriously refuted, that the arguments there put forth 



2 Diog. Laert. Vit Plat 



8 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

have ever since exercised a strong influence upon the 
speculative world. It may be remarked that in the 
minds of Plato and of those who have since pursued 
the same paths of speculation, the interest of such dis- 
cussions as those we are now referring to, was by no 
means limited to their bearing upon mere theory; but 
was closely connected with those great questions of 
morals which have always a practical import. Those 
who asserted that the only foundation of knowledge 
was sensation, asserted also that the only foundation of 
virtue was the desire of pleasure. And in Plato, the 
metaphysical part of the disquisitions concerning know- 
ledge in general, though independent in its prmciples, 
always seems to be subordinate in its purpose to the 
questions concerning the knowledge of our duty. 

Since Plato thus looked upon the Ideas which were 
involved in each department of knowledge as forming 
its only essential part, it was natural that he should 
look upon the study of Ideas as the true mode of pur- 
suing knowledge. This he himself describes in the 
Philebus^. " The best way of arriving at truth is not 
very difficult to point out, but most hard to pursue. 
All the arts which have ever been discovered, were* 
revealed in this manner. It is a gift of the godf* to 
man, which, as I conceive, they sent down by some 
Prometheus, as by Prometheus they gave us the light 
of fire ; and the ancients, more clear-sighted than we, 
and less removed from the gods, handed down this 
traditionary doctrine: that whatever is said to be, 
comes of One and of Many, and comprehends in it- 
itself the Finite and the Infinite in coalition (being 
One Kind, and consisting of Infinite Individuals). 
And this being the state of things, we must, in each 
case, endeavour to seize the One Idea (the idea of the 
Kind) as the chief point; for we shall find that it is 
there. And when we have seized this one thing, we 
may then consider how it comprehends in itself two, 
or three, or any other number; and, again, examine 
each of these ramifications separately; till at last we 



3 T. iL p. i6, c, d. ed. Bekker, t. v. p. 437. 



PLATO. 9 

perceive, not only that One is at the same time One 
and Many, but also liow many. And when we have 
thus filled up the interval between the Infinite and ) 

the One, we may consider that we have done with ' 

each one. The gods then, as I have said, taught us 
by tradition thus to contemplate, and to learn, and to 
teach one another. But the philosophers of the pre- 
sent day seize upon the One, at hazard, too soon or too 
late, and then immediately snatch at the Infinite; but 
the intermediate steps escape them, in which resides 
the distinction between a truly logical and a mere 
disputatious discussion." 

It would seem that what the author here describes 
as the most perfect form of exposition, is that which 
refers each object to its place in a classification con- 
taining a complete series of subordinations, and which 
gives a definition of each class. We have repeatedly 
remarked that, in sciences of classification, each new 
definition which gives a tenable and distinct separation 
of classes is an important advance in our knowledge ; 
but that such definitions are rather the last than the 
first step in each advance. In the progress of real 
knowledge, these definitions are always the results of 
a laborious study of individual cases, and are never 
arrived at by a pure efibrt of thought, which is what 
Plato appears to have imagined as the true mode of 
philosophizing. And still less do the advances of other 
sciences consist in seizing at once upon the highest 
generality, and filling in afterwards all the interme- 
diate steps between that and the special instances. On 
the contrary, as we have seen, the ascents from par- 
ticular to general are all successive; and each step of 
this ascent requires time, and labour, and a patient 
examination of actual facts and objects. 

It would, of course, be absurd to blame Plato for 
having inadequate views of the nature of progressive 
knowledge, at the time when knowledge could hardly 
be said to have begun its progress. But we already 
find in his speculations, as appears in the passages 
just quoted from his writings, several points brought 
into view which will require our continued attention 



10 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

as we proceed. In overlooking the necessity of a 
gradual and successive advance from the less general 
to the more general truths, Plato shared in a dimness 
of vision* which prevailed among philosophers to the 
time of Francis Bacon. In thinking too slightly 
of the study of actual nature, he manifested a bias 
from which the human intellect freed itself in the 
vigorous struggles which terminated the dark ages. 
In pointing out that all knowledge implies a unity of 
what we observe as manifold, which unity is given by 
the mind, Plato taught a lesson which has of late 
been too obscurely acknowledged, the recoil by which 
men repaired their long neglect of facts having car- 
ried them for a while so far as to think that facts 
were the whole of our knowledge. And in analysing 
this principle of Unity, by which we thus connect 
sensible things, into various Ideas, such as Number, 
Magnitude, Position, Motion, he made a highly im- 
portant step, which it has been the business of philo- 
sophers in succeeding times to complete and to folloAv 
out. 

But the efficacy of Plato's speculations in their 
bearing upon physical science, and upon theory in 
general, was much weakened by the confusion of 
practical with theoretical knowledge, which arose from 
the ethical propensities of the Socratic school. In 
the Platonic Dialogues, Art and Science are constantly 
spoken of indiscriminately. The skill possessed by 
the Painter, the Architect, the Shoemaker, is consi- 
dered as a just example of human science, no less 
than the knowledge which the geometer or the astro- 
nomer possesses of the theoretical truths with which 
he is conversant. Not only so; but traditionary and 
mythological tales, mystical imaginations and fantasti- 
cal etymologies, are mixed up, as no less choice in- 
gredients, with the most acute logical analyses, and 
the most exact conduct of metaphysical controversies. 
There is no distinction made between the knowledge 
possessed by the theoretical psychologist and the 



* See the remarks on this phrase in the next chapter. 



PLATO. 1 1 

physician, tlie philosophical teacher of morals and the 
legislator or the administrator of law. This, indeed, 
is the less to be wondered at, since even in our own 
time the same confusion is very commonly made by 
persons not otherwise ignorant or uncultured. 

On the other hand, we may remark finally, that 
Plato's admiration of Ideas was not a barren imagina- 
tion, even so far as regarded physical science. For, 
as we have seen^, he had a very important share in 
the introduction of the theory of epicycles, having 
been the first to propose to astronomers in a distinct 
form, the problem of which that theory was the solu- 
tion; namely, "to explain the celestial phenomena by 
the combination of equable circular motions." This 
demand of an ideal hypothesis which should exactly 
express the phenomena (as well as they could then be 
observed), and from which, by the interposition of 
suitable steps, all special cases might be deduced, falls 
in well with those views respecting the proper mode 
of seeking knowledge which we have quoted from the 
Philehus. And the Idea which could thus represent 
and replace all the particular Facts, being not only 
sought but found, we may readily suppose that the 
philosopher Avas, by this event, strongly confirmed in 
his persuasion that such an Idea was indeed what the 
inquirer ought to seek. In this conviction all his 
genuine followers up to modern times have partici- 
23ated ; and thus, though they have avoided the error 
of those who hold that facts alone are valuable as the 
elements of our knowledge, they have frequently run 
into the opposite error of too much despising and 
neglecting facts, and of thinking that the business of 
the inquirer after truth was only a profound and con- 
stant contemplation of the conceptions of his own 
mind. But of this hereafter. 



^ Hist. hid. Sc. b. iil c. ii. 



CHAPTER III. 
Additional Remarks on Plato. 



THE leading points in Plato's writings which bear 
upon the philosophy of discovery are these : 

1. The Doctrine of Ideas. 

2. The Doctrine of the One and the Many. 

3. The notion of the nature and aim of Science. 

4. The survey of existing Sciences. 

I. The Doctrine of Ideas is an attempt to solve a 
problem which in all ages forces itself upon the notice 
of thoughtful men; namely, How can certain and 
permanent knowledge be possible for man, since all 
his knowledge must be derived from transient and 
fluctuating sensations ? And the answer given by this 
doctrine is, that certain and permanent knowledge is 
not derived from Sensatio7is, but from Ideas. There 
are in the mind certain elements of knowledge which 
are not derived from sensation, and are only imper- 
fectly exemplified in sensible objects; and when we 
reason concerning sensible things so as to obtain real 
knowledge, we do so by considering such things as 
partaking of the qualities of the Ideas concerning 
which there can be truth. The sciences of Geometry 
and Arithmetic show that there are truths which 
man can know; and the Doctrine of Ideas explains 
how this is possible. 

So far the Doctrine of Ideas answers its primary 
purpose, and is a reply (by no means the least intel- 
ligible and satisfactory reply) to a question still agi- 
tated among philosophers: What is the ground of 
geometrical (and other necessary) truth? 

But Plato seems, in many of his writings, to extend 
this doctrine much further; and to assume, not only 
. Ideas of Space and its properties, from which geome- 



ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON PLATO. 1 3 

trical truths are derived; but of Kelations, as the 
Relations of Like and Unlike, G-reater and Less; and 
of mere material objects, as Tables and Chairs. Now 
to assume Ideas of such things as these solves no dif- 
ficulty and is supported by no argument. In this 
respect the Ideal theory is of no value in Science. 

It is curious that we have a very acute refutation 
of the Ideal theory in this sense, not only in Aristotle, 
the open opponent of Plato on this subject, but in the 
Platonic writings themselves : namely, in the Dialogue 
entitled Parmenides ; which, on this and on other ac- 
counts, I consider to be the work not of Plato, but of 
an opponent of Plato \ 

2. I have spoken, in the preceding chapter, of 
Plato's doctrine that truth is to be obtained by dis- 
cerning the One in the Many. This expression is 
used, it would seem, in a somewhat large and fluctuat- 
ing way, to mean several things; as for instance, 
finding the one kind in many individiials (for in- 
stance, the one idea of dog in many dogs); or the 
one law in many phenomena (for instance, the eccen- 
trics and epicycles in many planets). In any inter- 
pretation, it is too loose and indefinite a rule to be of 
much value in the formation of sciences, though it 
has been recently again propounded as important in 
modern times. 

3. I have said, in the preceding chapter, that 
Plato, though he saw that scientific truths of great 
generality might be obtained and were to be arrived 
at by philosophers, overlooked the necessity of a gra- 
dual and successive advance from the less general to 
the more general; and I have described this as a 
' dimness of vision.' I must now acknowledge that this 
is not a very appropriate phrase; for not only no 
acuteness of vision could have enabled Plato to see 
that gradual generalization in science of which, as yet, 
no example had appeared; but it was very fortunate 
for the progress of truth, at that time, that Plato had 
imagined to himself the object of science to be general 



1 This matter is further discussed in the Appendix, Essay A. 



14 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

and sublime truths which, prove themselves to be true 
by the light of their own generality and symmetry. 
It is worth while to illustrate this notice of Plato by 
some references to his writings. 

In the Sixth Book of the Republic, Plato treats of 
the then existing sciences as the instruments of a 
philosophical education. Among the most conspicu- 
ous of these is astronomy. He there ridicules the 
notion that astronomy is a sublime science because it 
makes men look upward. He asserts that the really 
sublime science is that which makes men look at the 
realities, which are suggested by the appearances seen 
in the heavens : namely, the spheres which revolve and 
carry the luminaries in their revolutions. Now it was 
no doubt the determined search for such "realities" 
as these which gave birth to the Greek Astronomy, 
that first and critical step in the progress of science. 
Plato, by his exhortations, if not by his suggestions, 
contributed efiectually, as I conceive, to this step in 
science. In the same manner he requires a science of 
Harmonics which shall be free from the defects and 
inaccuracies which occur in actual instruments. This 
belief that the universe was full of mathematical rela- 
tions, and that these were the true objects of scientific 
research, gave a vigour, largeness of mind, and con- 
fidence to the Greek speculators which no more cau- 
tious view of the problem of scientific discovery could 
have supplied. It was well that this advanced guard 
in the army of discoverers was filled with indomitable 
courage, boundless hopes, and creative minds. 

But we must not forget that this disposition to 
what Bacon calls anticipation was full of danger as 
well as of hope. It led Plato into error, as it led 
Kepler afterwards, and many others in all ages of 
scientific acti\ity. It led Plato into error, for in- 
stance, when it led him to assert (in the Timceus) that 
the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, have, 
for the forms of their particles respectively, the Cube, 
the Icosahedron, the Pyramid, and the Octahedron; 
and again, when it led him to despise the practical 
controversies of the musicians of his time ; which con- 



ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON PLATO. 1 5 

troversies were, in fact, tlie proof of the truth of the 
mathematical theory of Harmonics. And in like man- 
ner it led Kepler into error when it led him to believe 
that he had found the reason of the number, size and 
motion of the planetary orbits in the application of 
the five regular solids to the frame of the universe ^ 

How far the caution in forming hypotheses which 
Bacon's writings urge upon us is more severe than 
suits the present prospects of science, we may hereafter 
consider; but it is plainly very conceivable that a 
boldness in the invention and application of hypo- 
theses which was propitious to science in its infancy, 
may be one of the greatest dangers of its more mature 
period: and further, that the happy effect of such a 
temper depended entirely upon the candour, skill and 
labour with which the hypotheses were compared with 
the observed phenomena. 

4. Plato has given a survey of the sciences of his 
time as Francis Bacon has of his. Indeed Plato has 
given two such surveys: one, in the Republic, in 
reviewing, as I have said, the elements of a philoso- 
phical education; the other in the Timceus, as the 
portions of a theological view of the universe — such 
as has been called a Theodiccea, a justification of God. 
In the former passage of Plato, the sciences enume- 
rated are Arithmetic, Plane Geometry, Solid Geometry, 
Astronomy and Harmonics^. In the Timceus we have 
a further notice of many other subjects, in a way 
which is intended, I conceive, to include such know- 
ledge as Plato had then arrived at on the various parts 
of the universe. The subjects there referred to are, 
as I have elsewhere stated*, these: light and heat, 
water, ice, gold, gems, rust and other natural objects : 
— odours, taste, hearing, lights, colour, and the powers 
of sense in general : — the parts and organs of the body, 
as the bones, the marrow, the brain, flesh, muscles, 
tendons, ligaments and nerves; the skin, the hair, the 



These matters are further discussed in the Appendix, Essay B. 

^ See Appendix, Essay B. 

* Hist. Ind. Sc. b. ii. Additions to 3rd Ed. 



1 6 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

nails; the veins and arteries; respiration; genera- 
tion; and in short, every obvious point of physiology. 
But the opinions thus delivered in the Timceus on the 
latter subject have little to do with the progress of 
real knowledge. The doctrines, on the other hand, 
which depend upon geometrical and arithmetical rela- 
tions are portions or preludes of the sciences which 
the fulness of time brought forth. 

5. I may, as further bearing upon the Platonic 
notion of science, notice Plato's view of the constitu- 
tion of the human mind. According to him the Ideas 
which are the constituents of science form an Intel- 
ligible World, while the visible and tangible things 
which we perceive by our senses form the Visible 
World. In the visible world we have shadows and 
reflections of actual objects, and by these shadows and 
reflections we may judge of the objects, even when we 
cannot do so directly; as when men in a dark cavern 
judge of external objects by the shadows which they 
cast into the cavern. In like manner in the Intelli- 
gible World there are conceptions which are the usual 
objects of human thought, and about which we reason; 
but these are only shadows and reflections of the Ideas 
which are the real sources of truth. And the Beason- 
ing Faculty, the Discursive Peason, the Logos, which 
thus deals with conceptions, is subordinate to the In- 
tuitive Faculty, the Intuitive Reason, the Rous, which 
apprehends Ideas ^ This recognition of a Faculty in 
man v/hich contemplates the foundations — the Funda- 
TYiental Ideas — of science, and by apprehending such 
Ideas, makes science possible, is consentaneous to the 
philosophy which I have all along presented, as the 
view taught us by a careful study of the history and 
nature of science. That new Fundamental Ideas are 
unfolded, and the Intuitive Faculty developed and 
enlarged by the progress of science and by an intimate 
acquaintance with its reasonings, Plato apjDears to have 
discerned in some measure, though dimly. And this 
is the less wonderful, inasmuch as this gradual and 



* See these views farther discussed in the Appendix, Essay C. 



ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON PLATO. 1 7 

successive extension of the field of Intuitive Truth, in 
proportion as we become familiar with a larger amount 
of derived truth, is even now accepted by few, though 
proved by the reasonings of the greatest scientific dis- 
coverers in every age. 

The leading defect in Plato's view of the nature of 
real science is his not seeing fully the extent to which 
experience and observation are the basis of all our 
knowledge of the universe. He considers the lumina- 
ries which appear in the heavens to be not the true 
objects of astronomy, but only some imperfect adum- 
bration of them;— -mere diagrams which may assist us 
in the study of a higher truth, as beautiful diagrams 
might illustrate the truths of geometry, but would not 
prove them. This notion of an astronomy which is an 
astronomy of Theories and not of Facts, is not tenable, 
for Theories are Facts. Theories and Facts are equally 
real; true Theories are Facts, and Facts are familiar 
Theories. But when Plato says that astronomy is a 
series of problems suggested by visible things, he uses 
expressions quite conformable to the true philosophy 
of science ; and the like is true of all other sciences. 



CHAPTEE TV. 

Aristotle. 



THE views of Aristotle with regard to the founda- 
tions of human knowledge are very different from 
those of his tutor Plato, and are even by himself put 
in opposition • to them. He dissents altogether from 
the Platonic doctrine that Ideas are the true materials 
of our knowledge ; and after giving, respecting the 
origin of this doctrine, the account which we quoted 
in the last chapter, he goes on to reason against it. 
"Thus," he says ^, "they devised Ideas of all things 
which are spoken of as universals : much as if any 
one having to count a number of objects, should think 
that he could not do it while they were few, and 
should expect to count them by making them more 
numerous. For the kinds of things are almost more 
numerous than the special sensible objects, by seeking 
the causes of which they were led to their Ideas." He 
then goes on to urge several other reasons against the 
assumption of Ideas and the use of them in philoso- 
phical researches. 

Aristotle himself establishes his doctrines by trains 
of reasoning. But reasoning must proceed from cer- 
tain First Principles; and the question then arises. 
Whence are these First Principles obtained? To this 
he replies, that they are the result of Experience, and 
he even employs the same technical expression by 
which we at this day describe the process of collecting 
these principles from observed facts; — that they are 
obtained by Induction. I have already quoted pas- 
sages in which this statement is made^. " The way 
of reasoning," he says^, "is the same in philosophy, 



1 Metaph. xii. 4. 2 jjigi^ j^^^ g^^ ^)_ ^ q^ m gg^t. 2. 

3 Analyt. Prior. L 30. 



ARISTOTLE. 1 9 

and in any art or science : we must collect the facts 
(ra •uTTctpxovTa), and the things to which the facts hap- 
pen, and must have as large a supply of these as 
possible, and then we must examine them according 
to the terms of our syllogisms."..." There are peculiar 
principles in each science; and in each case these 
principles must be obtained from experience. Thus 
astronomical observation supplies the principles of 
astronomical science. For the phenomena being 
rightly taken, the demonstrations of astronomy were 
discovered ; and the same is the case with any other 
Art or Science. So that if the facts in each case be 
taken, it is our business to construct the demonstra- 
tions. For if in our natural history {Kara Trjv tcrro- 
piav) we have omitted none of the facts and properties 
which belong to the subject, we shall learn what we 
can demonstrate and what we cannot." And again ^, 
"It is manifest that if any sensation be wanting, 
there must be some knowledge wanting, which we are 
thus prevented from having. For we acquire know- 
ledge either hy Induction {kirayoiyy) or by Demonstra- 
tion : and Demonstration is from universals, but In- 
duction from particulars. It is impossible to have 
universal theoretical propositions except by Induction :. 
and we cannot make inductions without having sen- 
sation; for sensation has to do with particulars." 

It is easy to show that Aristotle uses the term 
Induction, as we use it, to express the process of 
collecting a general proposition from particular cases 
in which it is exemplified. Thus in a passage which 
we have already quoted^, he says, "Induction, and 
Syllogism from Induction, is when we attribute one 
extreme term to the middle by means of the other." 
The import of this technical phraseology will further 
appear by the example which he gives : " We find 
that several animals which are deficient in bile are 
long-lived, as man, the horse, the mule; hence we 
infer that all animals which are deficient in bile are 
long-lived." 



■* Ancdyt Post. i. 18. * Analyt. Prior, ii. 23, nepl 7175 en-aywyr]?. 

C 2 



20 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

We may observe, liowever, that botli Aristotle's 
notion of induction, and many other parts of his 
philosophy, are obscure and imperfect, in consequence 
of his refusing to contemplate ideas as something 
distinct from sensation. It thus happens that he 
always assumes the ideas which enter into his proposi- 
tion as given; and considers it as the philosopher's 
business to determine whether such propositions are 
true or not : whereas the most important feature in 
induction is, as we have said, the introduction of a 
new idea, and not its employment when once intro- 
duced. That the mind in this manner gives unity to 
that which is manifold, — that we are thus led to specu- 
lative principles which have an evidence higher than 
any others, — and that a peculiar sagacity in some men 
seizes upon the conceptions by which the facts may be 
bound into true propositions, — are doctrines which 
form no essential part of the philosophy of the Stagirite, 
although such views are sometimes recognized, more 
or less clearly, in his expressions. Thus he says^, 
" There can be no knowledge when the sensation does 
not continue in the mind. For this purpose, it is 
necessary both to perceive, and to have some unity in 
the mind (alorOavofxevoi^ '^X^'-^ ^'^ '^'-^ ^^ '^V 4^'^XV)'> ^^^ 
many such perceptions having taken place, some 
difference is then perceived : and from the remem- 
brance of these arises Reason. Thus from Sensation 
comes Memory, and from Memory of the same thing 
often repeated comes Experience : for many acts of 
Memory make up one Experience. And from Expe- 
rience, or from any Universal Notion which takes a 
permanent place in the mind, — from the U7iit7/ in the 
inanifold, the same some one thing being found in 
many facts, — springs the first principle of Art and of 
Science; of Art, if it be employed about production; 
of Science, if about existence." 



^ Analyt. Fost. ii. ig. This correction does not disturb the 

7 But the best reading seems to be general sense of the passage, that 

not eV Tt but fcVc : and the clause must the first principles of science are 

be rendered "both to perceive and to obtained by finding the One in the 

retain the perception in the mind." Many. 



ARISTOTLE. 21 

I will add to tliis, Aristotle's notice of Sagacity ; 
since, although little or no further reference is made 
to this quality in his philosophy, the passage fixes our 
attention upon an important step in the formation of 
knowledge. "Sagacity" (ayx'^vota), he says^, "is a 
hitting by guess (evo-roxta rt?) upon the middle term 
(the conception common to two cases) in an inapprecia- 
ble time. As for example, if any one seeing that the 
bright side of the moon is always towards the sun, 
suddenly perceives why this is; namely, because the 
moon shines by the light of the sun : — or if he sees 
a person talking with a rich man, he guesses that he 
is borrowing money; — or conjectures that two persons 
are friends, because they are enemies of the same 
person." — To consider only the first of these exam- 
ples; — the conception here introduced, that of a body 
shining by the light which another casts upon it, is 
not contained in the observed facts, but introduced 
by the mind. It is, in short, that conception which, 
in the act of induction, the mind superadds to the phe- 
nomena as they are presented by the senses : and to 
invent such appropriate conceptions, such "eustochies," 
is, indeed, the precise office of inductive sagacity. 

At the end of this work (the Later Analytics) 
Aristotle ascribes our knowledge of principles to In- 
tellect (vov?), or, as it appears necessary to translate 
the word. Intuition^. " Since, of our intellectual habits 
by which we aim at truth, some are always true, but 
some admit of being false, as Opinion and Reasoning, but 
Science and Intuition are always true ; and since there 
is nothing which is more certain than Science except 
Intuition; and since Principles are better known to 
us than the Deductions from them; and since all 
Science is connected by reasoning, we cannot have 
Science resjDecting Principles. Considering this then, 
and that the beginning of Demonstration cannot be 
Demonstration, nor the beginning of Science, Science ; 
and since, as we have said, there is no other kind of 
truth, Intuition must be the beginning of Science." 



" Analyt. Post. L 34. ^ Ibid. ii. 19. 



22 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

"What is here said, is, no doubt, in accordance with 
the doctrines which we have endeavoured to establish 
respecting the nature of Science, if by this Intuition 
we understand that contemplation of certain Funda- 
mental Ideas, which is the basis of all rigorous know- 
ledge. But notwithstanding this apparent approxi- 
mation, Aristotle was far from having an habitual 
and practical possession of the principles which he 
thus touches upon. He did not, in reality, construct 
his philosophy by giving Unity to that which was 
manifold, or by seeking in Intuition principles which 
might be the basis of Demonstration; nor did he col- 
lect, in each subject, fundamental propositions by an 
induction of particulars. He rather endeavoured to 
divide than to unite; he employed himself, not in 
combining facts, but in analysing notions; and the 
criterion to which he referred his analysis was, not 
the facts of our experience, but our habits of lan- 
guage. Thus his opinions rested, not upon sound 
inductions, gathered in each case from the phenomena 
by means of appropriate Ideas; but upon the loose 
and vague generalizations which are implied in the 
common use of speech. 

Yet Aristotle was so far consistent with his own 
doctrine of the derivation of knowledge from expe- 
rience, that he made in almost every province of human 
knowledge, a vast collection of such special facts as 
the experience of his time supplied. These collections 
are almost unrivalled, even to the present day, espe- 
cially in Natural History; in other departments, when 
to the facts we must add the right Inductive Idea, in 
order to obtain truth, we find little of value in the 
Aristotelic works. But in those parts which refer to 
Natural History, we find not only an immense and 
varied collection of facts and observations, but a saga- 
city and acuteness in classification which it is impos- 
sible not to admire. This indeed appears to have been 
the most eminent faculty in Aristotle's mind. 

The influence of Aristotle in succeeding ages will 
come under our notice shortly. 



CHAPTER Y. 

Additional Remarks on Aristotle. 



I. i^N"E of the most conspicuous points in Aris- 

\J totle's doctrines as bearing upon the philosoj)hy 
of Science is his account of that mode of attaining 
truth which is called Induction; for we are accustomed 
to consider Induction as the process by which our 
Sciences have been formed; and we call them collect- 
ively the Inductive Sciences. Aristotle often speaks of 
Induction, as for instance, when he says that Socrates 
introduced the frequent use of it. But the cardinal 
passage on this subject is in his Anali/tics, in which he 
compares Syllogism and Induction as two modes of 
drawing conclusion s\ He there says that all belief 
arises either from Syllogism or from Induction: and 
adds that Induction is, when by means of one extreme 
term we infer the other extreme to be true of the 
middle term. The example which he gives is this : 
knowing that particular animals are long-lived, as 
elephant, horse, mule; and finding that these animals 
agree in having no gall-bladder; we infer, by In- 
duction, that all animals which have no gall-bladder 
are long-lived. This may be done, he says, if the 
middle and the second extreme are convertible : as 
the following formal statement may show. 

Elephant, horse, mule, &c. are long-lived. 

Elephant, horse, mule, &c. are all gall-less. 
If we might convert this proposition, and say 

All gall-less animals are as elephant, horse, mule, 
&c. : 



1 Analyt. PHor. ii 25. 



24 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

we might infer syllogistically that 

All gall-less animals are long-lived. 

And though we cannot infer this syllogistically, we 
infer it by Induction, when we have a sufficient 
amount of instances ^ 

I have already elsewhere given this account of In- 
duction, as a process employed in the formation of our 
knowledge ^ What I have now to remark concerning 
Aristotle is, that it does not appear to have occurred 
to him, that in establishing such a proposition as that 
which he gives as his instance, the main difficulty is 
the discovery of a Tniddle term which will allow us to 
frame such a proposition as we need. The zoologist 
who wanted to know what kind of animals are long- 
lived, might guess long before he guessed that the 
absence of the gall-bladder supplied the requisite 
middle term; (if the proposition were true; which it 
is not.) And in like manner in other cases, it is diffi- 
cult to find a middle term, which enables us to collect 
a proposition by Induction. And herein consists the 
imperfection of his view of the subject ; which con- 
siders the main point to be the proof of the proposition 
when the conceptions are given; whereas the main 
point really is, the discovery of conceptions which will 
make a true proposition possible. 

2. Since the main characteristic of the steps 
which have occurred in the formation of the physical 
sciences, is not merely that they are propositions col- 
lected by Induction, but by the introduction of a new 
conception; it has been suggested that it is not a 
characteristic designation of these Sciences to call them 
Inductive Sciences. Almost every discovery involves 
in it the introduction of a new conception, as the ele- 
ment of a new proposition; and the novelty of the 
conception is more characteristic of the stages of disco- 
very than the inductive application of it. Hence as 



2 See on this subject Appendix, Essay D. 
3 See the chapter on Certain Characteristics of Scientific Induction in 
the Phil. Ind. Sc. or in the Nvv. Org. Renov. 



ADDITIONAL EEMARKS ON ARISTOTLE. 25 

bearing upon the Pliilosophy of Discovery, the state- 
ments of Aristotle concerniDg Induction, though acute 
and valuable, are not so valuable as they might seem. 
Even Francis Bacon, it has been asserted, erred in the 
same way (and of course with less excuse) in asserting 
Induction, of a certain kind, to be the great instrument 
for the promotion of knowledge, and in overlooking 
the necessity of the Invention which gives Induction 
its value. 

3. The invention or discovery of a conception by 
which many facts of observation are conjoined so 
as to make them the materials of a proposition, is 
called in Plato, as we have seen, finding the One in the 
Many. 

In the passage quoted from the Later Analytics, 
Aristotle uses the same expression, and speaks very 
justly respecting the formation of knowledge. Indeed 
the Titles of the chapters of this and many parts of 
Aristotle's works "should lead us to expect just such a 
Philosophy of Discovery as is the object of our study 
at present. Thus we have. Anal. Post. B. 11. chap. 13 : 
" How we are to hunt (Orjpeveiv) the predications of a 
Definition." Chap. 14: "Precepts for the invention 
of Problems and of a Middle Term:" and the like. 
But when we come to read these chapters, they con- 
tain little that is of value, and resolve themselves 
mostly into permutations of Aristotle's logical phraseo- 

4. The part of the Aristotelian philosophy which 
has most permanently retained its place in modern 
Sciences is a part of which a use has been made quite 
different from that which was originally contemplated. 
The "Five words" which are explained in the Intro- 
duction to Aristotle's Categories: namely, the words 
Genus, Species, Difference, Property, Accident, were in- 
troduced mainly that they might be used in the propo- 
sitions of which Syllogisms consist, and might thus be 
the elements of reasoning. But it has so happened 
that these words are rarely used in Sciences of 
Eeasoning, but are abundantly and commonly used in 



26 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

the Sciences of Classification, as I liave explained in 
speaking of tlie Classificatorj Sciences*. 

5. Of Aristotle's actual contributions to tlie Physi- 
cal Sciences I liave spoken in the History of those 
Sciences ^ I have*' stated that he conceived the globu- 
lar form of the earth so clearly and gave so forcibly 
the arguments for that doctrine, that we may look 
upon him as the most effective teacher of it. Also in 
the Appendix to that History, published in the third 
edition, I have given Aristotle's account of the Rain- 
bow, as a further example of his industrious accumula- 
tion of facts, and of his liability to error in his facts. 

6. We do not find Aristotle so much impressed 
as we might have expected by that great monument 
of Grecian ingenuity, the theory of epicycles and ex- 
centrics' which his predecessor Plato urged so strong- 
ly upon the attention of his contemporaries. Aris- 
totle proves, as I have said, the globular form of the 
earth by good and sufficient arguments. He also 
proves by arguments which seem to him quite con- 
clusive ^, that the earth is in the center of the universe, 
and immoveable. As to the motions of the rest of 
the planets, he says little. The questions of their 
order, and their distances, and the like, belong, he says, 
to Astrology^. He remarks only that the revolution 
of the heaven itself, the outermost revolution, is simple 
and the quickest of all : that the revolutions of the 
others are slower, each moving in a direction opposite 
to the heaven in its own circle : and that it is reason- 
able that those which are nearest to the first revolu- 
tion should take the longest time in describing their 
own circle, and those that are furthest off, the least 
time, and the intermediate ones in the order of their 
distances, " as also the mathematicians show." 

In the Metaphysics^ he enumerates the circular 
movements which had been introduced by the astro- 



"* Phil. Ind. Sc. h. viii. c. i. art. 11, or Hist. Sc. Id. b. viiL 

^ B. i. c. xi. sect. 2. ^ B. iii. c. L sect. 9. 

' De Casio, il 13. ^ j^ifj^ „, ^^^ 9 ^u. 8. 



ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON ARISTOTLE. 2/ 

nomers Eudoxus and Calippus for the explanation of 
the phenomena presented by the sun, moon and pla- 
nets. These, he says, amount to fifty- five; and this, he 
says, must be the number of essences and principles 
which exist in the universe. 

7. In the Sciences of Classification, and especially 
in the classification of animals, higher claims have 
been made for Aristotle, which I have discussed in 
the History^". I have there attempted to show that 
Ai'istotle's classification, inasmuch as it enumerates all 
the parts of animals, may be said to contain the mate- 
rials of every subsequent classification : but that it can- 
not be said to anticipate any modern system, because 
the different grades of classification are not made sub- 
ordinate to one another as a systerii of classification 
requires. I have the satisfaction of finding Mr. Owen 
agreeing with me in these views ^\ 

8. Francis Bacon's criticism on Aristotle which I 
have quoted in the Appendix to the Histoiy^^, is 
severe, and I think evidently the result of prejudice. 
He disparages Aristotle in comparison with the other 
philosophers of Greece. ' Their systems,' he says, ' had 
some savour of experience, and nature, and bodily 
things; while the Physics of Aristotle, in general, 
sound only of Logical Terms. 

' Nor let any one be moved by this : that in his 
books Of Animals, and in his Problems, and in others 
of his tracts, there is often a quoting of experiments. 
For he had made up his mind beforehand ; and did not 
consult experience in order to make right propositions 
and axioms, but when he had settled his system to his 
will, he twisted experience round and made her bend 
to his system.' 

I do not think that this can be said with any truth. 
I know no instances in which Aristotle has twisted ex- 
perience round, and made her bend to his system. In 



1° B. xvi. c. vL 
11 On the Classification of Mammalia, d:c. : a Lecture delivered at Cam- 
bridge, May 10, 1859, p. 3. 

12 B. L c. xi. 



28 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

his Problems^ he is so far from giving dogmatical solu- 
tions of the questions proposed, that in most cases, he 
propounds two or three solutions as mere suggestions 
and conjectures. And both in his History of Animals, 
as I have said, and in others of his works, the want of 
system gives them an incoherent and tumultuary cha- 
racter, which even a false system would have advan- 
tageously removed; for, as I have said elsewhere, it is 
easier to translate a false system into a true one, than 
to introduce system into a mass of confusion. 

9. It is curious that a fundamental error into 
which Aristotle fell in his view of the conditions 
which determine the formation of Science is very 
nearly the same as one of Francis Bacon's leading 
mistakes. Aristotle says, that Science consists in 
knowing the causes of things, as Bacon aims at ac- 
quiring a knowledge of Uliq forms or essences of things 
and their qualities. But the history of all the sciences 
teaches us that sciences do not begin with such know- 
ledge, and that in few cases only do they ever attain to 
it. Sciences begin by a knowledge of the laws oi phe- 
nomena, and proceed by the discovery of the scientific 
ideas by which the phenomena are colligated, as I 
have shown in other works ^^ The discovery of causes 
is not beyond the human powers, as some have 
taught. Those who thus speak disregard the lessons 
taught by the history of Physical Astronomy, of 
Geology, of Physical Optics, Thermotics and other 
sciences. But the discovery of causes, and of the 
essential forms of qualities, is a triumph reserved for 
the later stages of each Science, when the knowledge 
of the laws of phenomena has already made great 
progress. It was not to be expected that Aristotle 
would discern this truth, when, as yet, there was no 
Science extant in which it had been exemplified. Yet 
in Astronomy, the theory of epicycles and excentrics 
had immense value, and even has still, as representing 
the laws of phenomena ; while the attempt to find in 



13 History of Scientific Ideas, and Novum Orgami,m Renovatum. 



ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON ARISTOTLE. 29 

it, as Aristotle wished to do, the ultimate causes of 
the motions of the universe, could only mislead. The 
Aristotelian maxim, which sounds so plausible, and 
has been so generally accepted, that " to know truly is 
to know the causes of things," is a bad guide in 
scientific research. Instead of it we might substitute 
this: that "though we may aspire to know at last 
why things are, we must be content for a long time 
with knowing how they are." 

10. Hence if we are asked whether Plato or 
Aristotle had the truer views of the nature and pro- 
perty of Science, we must give the preference to Plato ; 
for though his notion of a real Intelligible World, of 
which the Visible world was a fleeting and changeable 
shadow, was extravagant, yet it led him to seek to 
determine the forms of the Intelligible Things, which 
are really the laws of visible phenomena; while Aris- 
totle was led to pass lightly over such laws, because 
they did not at once reveal the causes which produced 
the phenomena. 

1 1. Aristotle, throughout his works, takes numerous 
occasions to argue against Plato's doctrine of Ideas. 
Yet these Ideas, so far as they were the Intelligible 
Forms of Visible Things, were really fit objects of 
philosophical research; and the search after them had 
a powerful influence in promoting the progress of 
Science. And we may see in the eflect of this search 
the answer to many of Aristotle's strongest argu- 
ments. For instance, Aristotle says that Plato, by 
way of explaining things, adds to them as many 
Ideas, and that this is just as if a man having to 
reckon a large number, were to begin by adding to it 
another large number. It is plain that to this we 
may reply, that the adopting the Ideas of Cycles, along 
with the motions of the Planets, does really explain 
the motions ; and that the Cycles are not simply added 
to the phenomena, but include and supersede the phe- 
nomena : a finite number of Cycles include and repre- 
sent an infinite number of separate phenomena. 

To Aristotle's argument that Ideas cannot be the 
Causes or Principles of Things, we should reply, that 



h- 



fi 



30 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

thougli they cannot be this, they may nevertheless be, 
and must be, the Conditions and Principles of our 
Knowledge, which is what we want them to be. 

I have given an account of the main features of 
Aristotle's philosophy, so far as it concerns the Physi- 
cal Sciences, in the History of the Inductive Sciences, 
Book I. 



CHAPTER YI. 

The Later Greeks. 



THUS while Plato was disposed to seek the essence 
of our knowledge in Ideas alone, Aristotle, slight- 
ing this source of truth, looked to Experience as the 
beginning of Science; and he attempted to obtain, by- 
division and deduction, all that Experience did not 
immediately supply. And thus, with these two gTeat 
names, began that struggle of opposite opinions which 
has ever since that time agitated the speculative world, 
as men have urged the claims of Ideas or of Expe- 
rience to our respect, and as alternately each of these 
elements of knowledge has been elevated above its due 
place, while the other has been unduly depressed. We 
shall see the successive turns of this balanced struggle 
in the remaining portions of this review. 

But we may observe that practically the influence 
of Plato predominated rather than that of Aristotle, 
in the remaining part of the history of ancient philo- 
sophy. It was, indeed, an habitual subject of dispute 
among men of letters, whether the sources of true 
knowledge are to be found in the Senses or in the 
Mind; the Epicureans taking one side of this alterna- 
tive, and the Academics another, while the Stoics in 
a certain manner included both elements in their view. 
But none of these sects showed their persuasion that 
the materials of knowledge were to be found in the 
domain of Sense, by seeking them there. ISTo one 
appears to have thought of following the example of 
Aristotle, and gathering together a store of observed 
facts. We may except, perhaps, assertions belonging 
to some provinces of Natural History, which were 
collected by various writers : but in these, the mixed 



32 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

character of tlie statements, the want of discrimination 
in the estimate of evidence, the credulity and love of 
the marvellous which the authors for the most part 
displayed, showed that instead of improving upon the 
example of Aristotle, they were wandering further 
and further from the path of real knowledge. And 
while they thus collected, with so little judgment, 
such statements as offered themselves, it hardly ap- 
pears to have occurred to any one to enlarge the stores 
of observation by the aid of experiment ; and to learn 
what the laws of nature were, by trying what were 
their results in particular cases. They used no instru- 
ments for obtaining an insight into the constitution of 
the universe, except logical distinctions and discussions ; 
and proceeded as if the phenomena familiar -to their 
predecessors must contain all that was needed as a 
basis for natural philosophy. By thus contenting 
themselves with the facts which the earlier philoso- 
phers had contemplated, they were led also to confine 
themselves to the ideas which those philosophers had 
put forth. For all the most remarkable alternatives 
of hypothesis, so far as they could be constructed with 
a slight and common knowledge of phenomena, had 
been promulgated by the acute and profound thinkers 
who gave the first impulse to philosophy : and it was 
not given to man to add much to the original inven- 
tions of their minds till he had undergone anew a long 
discipline of observation, and of thought employed 
upon observation. Thus the later authors of the Greek 
Schools became little better than commentators on 
the earlier; and the common-places with which the 
different schools carried on their debates, — the con- 
stantly recurring argument, with its known attendant 
answer, — the distinctions drawn fibaer and finer and 
leading to nothing, — render the speculations of those 
times a scholastic philosophy, in the same sense in 
which we employ the term when we speak of the 
labours of the middle ages. It will be understood 
that I now refer to that which is here my subject, the 
opinions concerning our knowledge of nature, and the 
methods in use for the purpose of obtaining such 



THE LATER GREEKS. 33 

knowledge. Whether the moral speculations of the 
ancient world were of the same stationary kind, going 
their round in a limited circle, like their metaphysics 
and physics, must be considered on some other occa- 
sion. 

*]VIr. Grote, in his very interesting discussion of 
Socrates's teaching, notices also^ the teaching of Hip- 
pocrates, whicli he conceives to have in one respect 
the same tendency as the philosophy of Socrates; 
namely, to turn away from the vague aggregate of 
doctrines and guesses which constituted the Physical 
Philosophy of that time, and to pursue instead a spe- 
cial and more practical course of inquiry : Hippocrates 
selecting Medicine and Socrates selecting Ethics. By 
this limitation of their subject, they avoided some of 
the errors of their predecessors. For, as Mr. Grote 
has also remarked, "the earlier speculators, Anaxa- 
goras, Empedocles, Democritus, the Pythagoreans, all 
had still present to their minds the vast and undivided 
problems which have been transmitted down from the 
old poets; bending their minds to the invention of 
some system which would explain them all at once, or 
assist the imagination in conceiving both how the 
Kosmos first began and how it continued to move on." 
There could be no better remedy for this ambitious 
error of the human mind than to have a definite sub- 
ject of study, such as the diseases and the health of 
the human body. Accordingly, we see that the study 
of medicine did draw its cultivators away from this 
ancient but unprofitable field. Hippocrates^ condemns 
those who, as Empedocles, set themselves to make out 
what man was from the beginning, how he began first 
to exist, and in what manner he was constructed. 
This is, he says, no part of medicine. In like manner 
he blames and refutes those who make some simple 
element, Hot, or Cold, or Moist, or Dry, the cause of 



1 The remainder of this chapter is new in the present edition. 

2 Hist, of Greece, Part ii chap. 68. 

2 Be Antiqua Medidna, c. 20. 

D 



34 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

diseases, and give medical precepts professing to be 
founded on this hypothesis. 

These passages are marked by the prudence which 
practical study suggests to a calm and clear-sighted 
man. They can hardly be said to have opened the 
way to a Science of Medicine; for in the sense in 
which we here use the word Science, namely, a collec- 
tion of general truths inferred from facts by successive 
discoverers, we have even yet no Science of Medicine. 
The question with regard to the number and nature 
of the Elements of which bodies are composed began 
to be agitated, as we have seen, at a very early period 
of Greek philosophy, and continued long to be regarded 
as a chief point of physiological doctrine. In Galen's 
work we have a treatise entitled. On the Elements 
according to Hipjwcrates; and the writer explains* 
that though Hippocrates has not written any work 
with the title On the Elements, yet that he has in his 
Treatise on the Nature of Man shown his opinion on 
that subject. That the doctrine of the Four Elements, 
Hot, Cold, Moist, Dry, subsisted long in the schools, 
we have evidence in Galen. He tells us^ that when 
he was a student of nineteen years old a teacher urged 
this lore upon him, and regarded him as very conten- 
tious and perverse, because he offered objections to 
it. His account of the Dialogue between him and the 
teacher is curious. But in Hippocrates the doctrine 
of these four elements is replaced, in a great measure, 
by the doctrine of the Four Humours of which the 
human body is constituted; namely. Blood, Phlegm, 
Yellow Bile and Black Bile. Galen dwells with em- 
phasis upon Hippocrates's proof that there must be 
more than one such element ^ 

"What," he asks, "is the method of finding the 
Elements of bodies ? There can, in my opinion, be 
no other than that which was introduced by Hippo- 
crates ; namely, we must inquire whether there be only 
one element, everywhere the same in kind, or whether 



* Lib. Leg. * De Elem. L 6. 

« la former editions I have not done justice to tliis passage. 



THE LATER GREEKS. 35 

there are more than one, various and unlike each 
other. And if the Element be not one only, but 
several, various and dissimilar, we must inquire in 
the second place, how many elements there are, and 
what, and of what kind they are, and how related in 
their association. 

" Now that the First Element is not one only of 
which both our bodies and those of all other creatures 
were produced, Hippocrates shows from these consi- ' 
derations. And it is better first to put down his own 
expressions and then to expound them. ' I assert that 
if man consisted of one element only he could not fall 
sick ; for there would be nothing which could derange 
his health, if he were all of one Element.' " 

The doctrine of One Element did not prevail much 
after the time of Hippocrates : the doctrine of Four 
Elements continued, as I have said, long to hold pos- 
session of the Schools, but does not appear as an 
important part of the doctrine of Hippocrates. The 
doctrine of the Four Humours (Blood, Phlegm, Yel- 
low Bile and Black Bile) is more peculiarly his, and 
long retained its place as a principle of physiological 
Science. 

But we are here not so much concerned with his 
discoveries in medicine as with his views respecting 
the method of acquiring sound knowledge, and in this 
respect, as has been said, he recommends by his prac- 
tice a prudent limitation of the field of inquiry, a 
rejection of wide, ambitious, general assertions, and a 
practical study of his proper field. 

In ascribing these merits to Hippocrates' s medical 
speculations as to the ethical speculations of his con- 
temporary Socrates, we assign considerable philosophi- 
cal value to Hippocrates, no less than to Socrates. 
These merits were at that time the great virtues of 
physical as well as of ethical philosophy. But, as 
Mr. Grote well observes, the community of character 
which then subsisted between the physical and ethical 
speculations prevailing at that time, ceased to ob- 
tain in later times. Indeed, it ceased to exist just 
at that time, in consequence of the establishment of 

D 2 



36 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

scientific astronomy by the exertions of Plato and his 
contemporaries. From that time the Common Sense 
(as we call it) of a man like Socrates, though it might 
be a good guide in ethics, was not a good guide in phy- 
sics. I have shown elsewhere^ how the Common Sense 
of Socrates was worthless in matters of astronomy. 
From that time one of the great intellectual lessons 
was, that in order to understand the external world, we 
must indeed observe carefully, but we must also guess 
boldly. Discovery here required an inventive mind 
like Plato's to deal with and arrange new and varied 
facts. But in ethics all the facts were old and fami- 
liar, and the generalizations of language by which 
they were grouped as Virtues and Vices, and the like, 
were common and well-known words. Here was no 
room for invention; and thus in the ethical specula- 
tions of Socrates or of any other moral teacher, we 
are not to look for any contributions to the Philosophy 
of Discovery. 

Nor do I find anything on this subject among later 
Greek writers, beyond the commendation of such in- 
tellectual virtues as Hippocrates and Galen, and other 
medical writers, schooled by the practice of their art, 
enjoined and praised. But before we quit the ancients 
I will point out some peculiarities which may be noticed 
in the Roman disciples of the Greek philosophy. 



' Eist Ind. Sc. Addition to Introduction in Third Edition. 



CHAPTEE YII. 

The Romans. 



THE E/Omans had no pMlasophy but tlmt which 
they borrowed from the Greeks; and what they 
thus received, they hardly made entirely their own. 
The vast and profound question of which we have 
been speaking, the relation between Existence and 
our Knowledge of what exists, they never appear to 
have fathomed, even so far as to discern how wide 
and deep it is. In the development of the ideas by 
which nature is to be understood, they went no fur- 
ther than their Greek masters had gone, nor indeed 
was more to be looked for. And in the practical 
habit of accumulating observed facts as materials for 
knowledge, they were much less discriminating and 
more credulous than their Greek predecessors. The 
descent from Aristotle to Pliny, in the judiciousness 
of the authors and the value of their collections of 
facts, is immense. 

Since the Pomans were thus servile followers of 
their Greek teachers, and little acquainted with any 
example of new truths collected from the world around 
them, it was not to be expected that they could have 
any just conception of that long and magnificent ascent 
from one set of truths to others of higher order and 
wider compass, which the history of science began to 
exliibit when the human mind recovered its progres- 
sive habits. Yet some dim presentiment of the splendid 
career thus destined for the intellect of man appears 
from time to time to have arisen in their minds. Per- 
haps the circumstance which most powerfully contri- 
buted to suggest this vision, was the vast intellectual 
progress which they were themselves conscious of 
having made, through the introduction of the Greek 



38 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOYERT. 

philosophy; and to this may be added, perhaps, some 
other features of national character. Their temper 
was too stubborn to acquiesce in the absolute authority 
of the Greek philosophy, although their minds were 
not inventive enough to establish a rival by its side. 
And the wonderful progress of their political power 
had given them a hope in the progress of man which 
the Greeks never possessed. The E-oman, as he be- 
lieved the fortune of his State to be destined for 
eternity, believed also in the immortal destiny and 
endless advance of that Intellectual Bepublic of which 
he had been admitted a denizen. 

It is easy to find examples of such feelings as I have 
endeavoured to describe. The enthusiasm with which 
Lucretius and Yirgil speak of physical knowledge, 
manifestly arises in a great measure from the delight 
which they had felt in becoming acquainted with the 
Greek theories. 

Me vero primum dulces ante omnia Musse 
Quarum sacra fero ingenti perculsns amore 
Accipiant, coelique vias et sidera monstrent, 
Defectus Solis varios, Lunseque labores ! . . . 
Telix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas ! 

Ye' sacred Muses, with whose beauty fir'd. 
My soul is ravisht and my brain inspir'd: 
"Whose Priest I am, whose holy fillets wear. 
Would you your Poet's first petition hear. 
Give me the ways of wand'ring stars to know. 
The depth of Heaven above and Earth below; 
Teach me the various labours of the Moon, 
And whence proceed th' eclipses of the Sun; 
Why flowing Tides prevail upon the main. 
And in what dark abyss they shrink again; 
What shakes the solid Earth; what cause delays 
The Summer Nights; and shortens Winter Days. . . 

Happy the man who, studying Nature's Laws, 
Through known effects can trace the secret cause ! 

Ovid^ expresses a similar feeling. 

Felices animos quibus haec cognoscere primis 
Inque domos superas scandere cura fuit ! . . , 



1 Lib. L Fast. 



THE ROMANS. 39 

Admovere oculis distantia sidera nostris 

^theraque ingenio supposuere suo. 
Sic petitur coelum : non ut ferat Ossam Olympus 

Summaque Peliacus sidera tanget apex. 

Thrice happy souls ! to -vvhoni 'twas given to rise 
To truths like these, and scale the spangled skies! 
Far distant stars to clearest view they brought, 
And girdled ether with their chain of thought. 
So heaven is reached : — not as of old they tried 
By mountains piled on mountains in their pride. 

And from tlie -whole tenour of these and similar 
passages, it is evident that the intellectual pleasure 
which arises from our first introduction to a beautiful 
physical theory had a main share in producing this 
enthusiasm at the contemplation of the victories of 
science; although undoubtedly the moral philosophy, 
which was never separated from the natural philosophy, 
and the triumph over superstitious fears, which a know- 
ledge of nature was supposed to furnish, added warmth 
to the feeling of exultation. 

We may trace a similar impression in the ardent 
expressions which Pliny ^ makes use of in speaking of 
the early astronomers, and which we have quoted in 
the History. "Great men! elevated above the com- 
mon standard of human nature, by discovering the 
laws which celestial occurrences obey, and by freeing 
the wretched mind of man from the fears which 
eclipses inspired." 

This exulting contemplation of what science had 
done, naturally led the mind to an anticipation of 
further achievements still to be performed. Expres- 
sions of this feeling occur in Seneca, and are of the 
most remarkable kind, as the following example will 
show^ : 

" Why do we wonder that comets, so rare a pheno- 
menon, have not yet had their laws assigned? — that we 
should know so little of their beginning and their end, 
when their recurrence is at wide intervals ? It is not |l 

yet fifteen hundred years since Greece, ^ */• 

Stellis numeros et nomina fecit. 



L 



Hist. Nat. L 75. 3 Quccst. Nat. viL :?s. 



40 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

' reckoned the stars, and gave them names.' There 
are still many nations which are acquainted with the 
heavens by sight only ; which do not yet know why the 
moon disappears, why she is eclipsed. It is but lately 
that among us philosophy has reduced these mattei's 
to a certainty. The day shall come when the course 
of time and the labour of a maturer age shall bring 
to light what is yet concealed. One generation, even 
if it devoted itself to the skies, is not enough for re- 
searches so extensive. How then can it be so, when 
we divide this scanty allowance of years into no equal 
shares between our studies and our vices'? These 
things then must be explained by a long succession of 
inquiries. "We have but just begun to know how 
arise the morning and evening appearances, the sta- 
tions, the progressions, and the retrogradations of the 
fixed stars which put themselves in our way; — which 
appearing perpetually in another and another place 
compel us to be curious. Some one will hereafter 
demonstrate in what region the comets wander; why 
they move so far asunder from the rest; of what size 
and nature they are. Let us be content with what we 
have discovered : let posterity contribute its share to 
truth." Again he adds* in the same strain: "Let 
us not wonder that what lies so deep is brought out 
so slowly. How many animals have become known 
for the first time in this age! And the members of 
future generations shall know many of which we are 
ignorant. Many things are reserved for ages to come, 
when our memory shall have passed away. The world 
would be a small thing indeed, if it did not contain 
matter of inquiry for all the world. Eleusis reserves 
something for the second visit of the worshipper. So 
too Nature does not at once disclose all her mysteries. 
We think ourselves initiated; we are but in the ves- 
tibule. The arcana are not thrown open without 
distinction and without reserve. This age will see 
some things; that which comes after us, others." 



■* Qucest. Nat. vii. 30, 31. 



THE ROMANS. 4 1 

"While we admire the happy coincidence of these 
conjectures with the soundest views which the history 
of science teaches us, we must not forget that they 
are merely conjectures, suggested by very vague im- 
pressions, and associated with very scanty conceptions 
of the laws of nature. Seneca's Natural Questions, 
from which the above extract is taken, contains a series 
of dissertations on various subjects of Natural Philo- 
sophy; as Meteors, Rainbows, Lightnings, Springs, 
Rivers, Snow, Hail, Rain, Wind, Earthquakes and 
Comets. In the whole of these dissertations, the 
statements are loose, and the explanations of little or 
no value. Perhaps it may be worth our while to 
notice a case in which he refers to an obsei-vation of 
his own, although his conclusion from it be erroneous. 
He is arguing^ against the opinion that Springs arise 
from the water which falls in rain. "In the first 
place," he says, " I, a very diligent digger in my vine- 
yard, affirm that no rain is so heavy as to moisten the 
earth to the depth of more than ten feet. All the 
moisture is consumed in this outer crust, and descends 
not to the lower part." We have here something of 
the nature of an experiment j and indeed, as we may 
readily conceive, the instinct which impels man to 
seek truth by experiment can never be altogether ex- 
tinguished. Seneca's experiment was deprived of its 
value by the indistinctness of his ideas, which led him 
to rest in the crude conception of the water being 
" consumed " in the superficial crust of the earth. ' \ 

It is unnecessary to pursue further the reasonings '^ 

of the Romans on such subjects, and we now proceed 
to the ages which succeeded the fall of their empire. 



^ Ihid. iiL 7. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Arabian Philosophers. 



I HA YE noticed certain additions to Physical Science 
made by the Arabians; namely, in Astronomy \ 
The discovery of the motion of the Sun's Apogee by 
Albategnius, and the discovery of the Moon's Variation 
by Aboul-Wefa; and in Optics^ the assertion of Alhazen 
that the angle of refraction is not proportional to the 
angle of incidence, as Ptolemy had supposed : and cer- 
tain steps in the philosophy of vision. We must also 
suppose, as the Arabic word alkali reminds us, that 
the Arabians contributed to lay the foundations of che- 
mistry. The question which we have here to ask is, 
whether the Arabians made any steps beyond their 
predecessors in the philosophy of discovery. And to 
this question, I conceive the answer must be this: 
that among them as among the Greeks, those who 
practically observed nature, and especially those who 
made discoveries in Science, must have had a practical 
acquaintance with some of the maxims which are 
exemplified in the formation of Science. To discover 
that the Apogee of the Sun was 17 degrees distant 
from the point where Ptolemy had placed it, Alba- 
tegnius made careful observations, and referred them 
to the theory of the eccentric, so as to verify or correct 
that theory. And when, in the eleventh century, 
Arzachel found the Apogee to be less advanced than 
Albategnius had found it, he proceeded again to cor- 
rect the theory by introducing a new movement of the 
equinoctial points, which was called the Trepidation. 



1 Hist. Ind. Sc. b. iiL c. iv. sect. 8. - Ibid. b. ix. c. iL 



ARABIAN PHILOSOPHERS. 43 

It appeared afterwards, however, that, in doing this, 
he had had too much confidence in the observations of 
his predecessors, and that no such movement as the 
Trepidation really existed. In like manner to correct 
Ptolemy's law of refraction, Alhazen had recourse to 
experiment : but he did not put his experiments in 
the form of a Table, as Ptolemy had done. If he 
had done this, he might possibly have discovered the 
law of sines, which Snell afterwards discovered. 

But though the Arabian philosophers thus, in some 
cases, observed facts, and referred those facts to 
general mathematical laws, it does not appear that 
they were led to put in any new or striking general 
form such maxims as this : That the progress of Sci- 
ence consists in the exact observation of facts and in 
colligating them by ideas. Those of them who were 
dissatisfied with the existing philosophy as barren and 
useless (for instance Algazel^), were led to point at 
the faults and contradictions of that philosophy, but 
did not attempt, so far as I know, to substitute for it 
anything better. If they rejected Aristotle's Org anon, 
they did not attempt to construct a new Organon for 
themselves. 

Indeed they do not appear even to have had suffi- 
cient confidence in the real truth of the astronomical 
theories which they had adopted from the Greeks, 
always to correct and extend those where their obser- 
vations showed that they required correction and ex- 
tension. Sometimes they did this, but not generally 
enough. When Arzachel found by observation the 
Apogee of the Sun to be situated too far back, he ven- 
tured to correct Ptolemy's statement of its motion. 
But when Aboul-Wefa had really discovered the Vari- 
ation of the Moon's motion, he did not express it 
by means of an epicycle. If he had done so, he would 
have made it unnecessary for Tycho Brahe at a later 
period to make the same discovery. 



Hist. Ind. Sc. b. iv. c. i. 



44 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

The moral of this incident is the same moral which we 
have perpetually to note as taught us at every step by 
the history of Science : — namely, the necessity of con- 
stant, careful and exact observation of Facts ; and the 
advantage of devising a Theory, (even if it have to be 
afterwards rejected,) by which the Eacts shall be 
bound together into a coherent whole. 



CHAPTER IX. 

The ScHOOLMEjf of the Middle Ages. 



IN the History of the Sciences I have devoted a Book 
to the state of Science in the middle ages, and have 
endeavoured to analyse the intellectual defects of that 
period. Among the characteristic features of the hu- 
man mind during those times, I have noticed Indis- 
tinctness of Ideas, a Commentatorial Spirit, Mysticism, 
and Dogmatism. The account there given of this 
portion of the history of man belongs, in reality, 
rather to the History of Ideas than to the History of 
Progressive Science. For, as we have there remarked, 
theoretical Science was, during the period of which we 

speak, almost entirely stationary; and the investiga- J,i. 

tion of the causes of such a state of things may be '!' 

considered as a part of that review in which we are 
now engaged, of the vicissitudes of man's acquaintance 
with the methods of discovery. But when we offered 
to the world a history of science, to leave so large a 
chasm unexplained, would have made the series of 1; 

events seem defective and broken ; and the survey of * 

the Middle Ages was therefore inserted. I would beg '"^ 

to refer to that portion of the former work the reader 
who wishes for information in addition to what is here 
given. 

The Indistinctness of Ideas and the Commenta- - 

torial Disposition of those ages have already been here 4. 

brought under our notice. Viewed with reference to w 

the opposition between Experience and Ideas, on | 

which point, as we have said, the succession of opinions 
in a great measure turns, it is clear that the commen- 
tatorial method belongs to the ideal side of the ques- j 
tion: for the commentator seeks for such knowledge 



46 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

as he values, by analysing and illustrating wliat his 
author has said; and, content with this material of 
speculation, does not desire to add to it new stores of 
experience and observation. And with regard to the 
two other features in the character which we gave to 
those ages, we may observe that Dogmatism demands 
for philosophical theories the submission of mind, due 
to those revealed religious doctrines which are to guide 
our conduct and direct our hopes : while Mysticism 
elevates ideas into realities, and offers them to us as 
the objects of our religious regard. Thus the Mysti- 
cism of the middle ages and their Dogmatism alike 
arose from not discriminating the offices of theoretical 
and practical philosophy. Mysticism claimed for ideas 
the dignity and reality of principles of moral action 
and religious hope: Dogmatism imposed theoretical 
opinions respecting speculative points with the impe- 
rative tone of rules of conduct and faith. 

If, however, the opposite claims of theory and prac- 
tice interfered with the progress of science by the con- 
fusion they thus occasioned, they did so far more 
by drawing men away altogether from mere physical 
speculations. The Christian religion, with its pre- 
cepts, its hopes, and its promises, became the leading 
subject of men's thoughts; and the great active truths 
thus revealed, and the duties thus enjoined, made all 
inquiries of mere curiosity appear frivolous and un- 
worthy of man. The Fathers of the Church some- 
times philosophized ill; but far more commonly they 
were too intent upon the great lessons which they had 
to teach, respecting man's situation in the eyes of his 
Heavenly Master, to philosophize at all respecting 
things remote from the business of life and of no im- 
portance in man's spiritual concerns. 

Yet man has his intellectual as well as his spiritual 
wants. He has faculties which demand systems and 
reasons, as well as precepts and promises. The Christ- 
ian doctor, who knew so much more than the heathen 
philosopher respecting the Creator and Governor of the 
universe, was not long content to know or to teach less, 
respecting the universe itself. While it was still main,- 



SCHOOLMEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 47 

tained tliat Theology was the only really important 
study, Theology was so extended and so fashioned as 
to include all other knowledge : and after no long 
time, the Fathers of the Church themselves became 
the authors of systems of universal knowledge. 

But when this happened, the commentatorial spirit 
was still in its full vigour. The learned Christians 
could not, any more than the later Greeks or the 
Komans, debase, by the mere force of their own inven- 
tion, new systems, full, comprehensive, and connected, 
like those of the heroic age of philosophy. The same 
mental tendencies which led men to look for specula- 
tive coherence and completeness in the view of the 
universe, led them also to admire and dwell upon the 
splendid and acute speculations of the Greeks. They 
were content to find, in those immortal works, the 
answers to the questions which their curiosity prompt- 
ed; and to seek what further satisfaction they might 
require, in analysing and unfolding the doctrines pro- 
mulgated by those great masters of knowledge. Thus 
the Christian doctors became, as to general philosophy, 
commentators upon the ancient Greek teachers. 

Among these, they selected Aristotle as their pecu- 
liar object of admiration and study. The vast store, 
both of opinions and facts, which his works contain, 
his acute distinctions, his cogent reasons in some por- 
tions of his speculations, his symmetrical systems in 
almost all, naturally commended him to the minds of 
subtle and curious men. We may add that Plato, 
who taught men to contemplate Ideas separate from 
Things, was not so well fitted for general acceptance 
as Aristotle, who rejected this separation. For al- 
though the due apprehension of this opposition of Ideas 
and Sensations is a necessary step in the progress of 
true philosophy, it requires a clearer view and a more 
balanced mind than the common herd of students 
possess; and Aristotle, who evaded the necessary per- 
plexities in which this antithesis involves us, appeared, 
to the temper of those times, the easier and the 
plainer guide of the two. 

The Doctors of the middle ages having thus adopted 



48 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

Aristotle as their master in pliilosopliy, we shall not be 
surprised to find them declaring, after him, that ex- 
perience is the source of our knowledge of the visible 
world. But though, like the Greeks, they thus talked 
of experiment, like the Greeks, they showed little 
disposition to discover the laws of nature by observa- 
tion of facts. This barren and formal recognition of 
experience or sensation as one source of knowledge, 
not being illustrated by a practical study of nature, 
and by real theoretical truths obtained by such a 
study, remained ever vague, wavering, and empty. 
Such a mere acknowledgment cannot, in any times, 
ancient or modern, be considered as indicating a just 
apprehension of the true basis and nature of science. 

In imperfectly perceiving how, and how far, expe- 
rience is the source of our knowledge of the external 
world, the teachers of the middle ages were in the 
dark; but so, on this subject, have been almost all the 
writers of all ages, with the exception of those who 
in recent times have had their minds enlightened by 
contemplating philosophically the modern progress of 
science. The opinions of the doctors of the middle 
ages on such subjects generally had those of Aristotle 
for their basis; but the subject was often still further 
analysed and Systematized, with an acute and metho- 
dical skill hardly inferior to that of Aristotle himself 

The Stagirite, in the beginning of his Physics, had 
made the following remarks. " In all bodies of doc- 
trine which involve principles, causes, or elements. 
Science and Knowledge arise from the knowledge 
of these; (for we then consider ourselves to know 
respecting any subject, when we know its first cause, 
its first principles, its ultimate elements.) It is evi- 
dent, therefore, that in seeking a knowledge of 
nature, we must first know what are its principles. 
But the course of our knowledge is, from the things 
which are better known and more manifest to us, to 
the things which are more certain and evident in 
nature. For those things which are most evident in 
truth, are not most evident to us. [And consequently 
we must advance from things obscure in nature, but 



SCHOOLMEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 49 

manifest to us, towards the things which are really in 
nature more clear and certain.] The things which 
are first obvious and apparent to us are complex; and 
from these we obtain, by analysis, principles and ele- 
ments. We must proceed from universals to particu- 
lars. For the whole is better known to our senses 
than the parts, and for the same reason, the universal 
better known than the j)articular. And thus words 
signify things in a large and indiscriminate way, 
which is afterwards analysed by definition ; as we see 
that the children at first call all men father, and all 
women mother, but afterwards learn to distinguish." 

There are various assertions contained in this ex- 
tract which came to be considered as standard maxims, 
and which occur constantly in the writers of the mid- 
dle ages. Such are, for instance, the maxim, " Yere 
scire est per causas scire;" the remark, that com- 
pounds are known to us iDefore their parts, and the 
illustration from the expressions used by children. 
Of the mode in which this subject was treated by the 
schoolmen, we may judge by looking at passages of 
Thomas Aquinas which treat of the subject of the 
human understanding. In the Summa Theologice, the 
eighty-fifth Question is On the manner and order of 
tender standing, which subject he considers in eight 
Articles; and these must, even now, be looked upon 
as exhibiting many of the most important and inter- 
esting points of the subject. They are, First, Whether 
our understanding understands by abstracting ideas 
{species) from appearances; Second, Whether intelli- 
gible species abstracted from appearances are related 
to our understanding as that which we understand, or 
that hy which we understand; Third, Whether our 
understanding does naturally understand universals 
first; Fourth, Whether our understanding can under- 
stand many things at once ; Fifth, Whether our un- 
derstanding understands by compounding and dividing; 
Sixth, Whether the understanding can err; Seventh, 
Whether one person can understand the same thing 
better than another; Eighth, Whether our under- 
standing understands the indivisible sooner than the 



50 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

divisible. And in tlie discussion of the last point, for 
example, reference is made to the passage of Aristotle 
which we have already quoted. " It may seem," he 
says, " that we understand the indivisible before the 
divisible; for the Philosopher says that we understand 
and know by knowing principles and elements; but 
indivisibles are the principles and elements of divisible 
things. But to this we may reply, that in our receiving 
of science, principles and elements are not always 
first; for sometimes from the sensible effects we go on 
to the knowledge of intelligible principles and causes." 
We see that both the objection and the answer are 
drawn from Aristotle. 

We find the same close imitation of Aristotle in 
Albertus Magnus, who, like Aquinas, flourished in the 
thirteenth century. Albertus, indeed, wrote treatises 
corresponding to almost all those of the Stagirite, and 
was called the -ipe of Aristotle. In the beginning of 
his Physics, he says, " Knowledge does not always 
begin from that which is first according to the nature 
of things, but from that of which the knowledge is 
easiest. For the human intellect, on account of its 
relation to the senses (propter reflexionem quam habet 
ad sensum), collects science from the senses ; and thus 
it is easier for our knowledge to begin from that which 
we can apprehend by sense, imagination, and intellect, 
than from that which we apprehend by intellect alone." 
We see that he has somewhat systematized what he 
has borrowed. 

This disposition to dwell upon and systematize the 
leading doctrines of metaphysics assumed a more defi- 
nite and permanent shape in the opposition of the 
Kealists and Nominalists. The opposition involved in 
this controversy is, in fact, that fundamental antithesis 
of Sense and Ideas about which philosophy has always 
been engaged; and of which we have marked the 
manifestation in Plato and Aristotle. The question, 
What is the object of our thoughts when we reason 
concerning the external world? must occur to all 
speculative minds : and the difficulties of the answer 
are manifest. We must reply, either that our own. 



SCHOOLMEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 5 1 

Ideas, or that Sensible Things, are the elements of 
our knowledge of nature. And then the scruples 
again occur, — how we have any general knowledge if 
our thoughts are fixed on particular objects; and, on 
the other hand, — how we can attain to any true know- 
ledge of nature by contemplating ideas which are not 
identical with objects in nature. The two opposite 
opinions maintained on this subject were, on the one 
side, — that our general propositions refer to objects 
which are real, though divested of the peculiarities of 
individuals; and, on the other side, — that in such 
propositions, individuals are not represented by any 
reality, but bound together by a name. These two 
views were held by the Realists and Nominalists re- 
spectively : and thus the Kealist manifested the adhe- 
rence to Ideas, and the Nominalist the adherence to 
the impressions of Sense, which have always existed 
as opposite yet correlative tendencies in man. 

The Realists were the prevailing sect in the Scho- 
lastic times : for example, both Thomas Aquinas and 
Duns Scotus, the Angelical and the Subtle Doctor, 
held this opinion, although opposed to each other in 
many of their leading doctrines on other subjects. 
And as the Nominalist, fixing his attention upon sen- 
sible objects, is obliged to consider what is the princi- 
ple of generalization, in order that the possibility of 
any general proposition may be conceivable; so on the 
other hand, the Realist, beginning with the contem- 
plation of universal ideas, is compelled to ask what is 
the principle of individuation, in order that he may 
comprehend the application of general propositions in 
each particular instance. This inquiry concerning the 
principle of individuation was accordingly a problem 
which occupied all the leading minds among the 
Schoolmen \ It will be apparent from what has been 
said, that it is only one of the many forms of the 
fundamental antithesis of the Ideas and the Senses, 
which we have constantly before us in this review. 



1 See the opinion of Aquinas, in Degerando, Hist Com. des Syst. iv. 499 ; 
of Duns Scotus, ibid. iv. 523. 

E 2 



52 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

The recognition of the derivation of our knowledge, 
in part at least, from Experience, though always loose 
and incomplete, appears often to be independent of the 
Peripatetic traditions. Thus Richard of St. Victor, 
a writer of contemplative theology in the twelfth cen- 
tury, says^, that "there are three sources of know- 
ledge, experience, reason, faith. Some things we prove 
by experiment, others we collect by reasoning, the 
certainty of others we hold by believing. And with 
regard to temporal matters, we obtain our knowledge 
by actual experience ; the other guides belong to 
divine knowledge." Richard also propounds a division 
of human knowledge which is clearly not derived 
directly from the ancients, and which shows that con- 
siderable attention must have been paid to such specu- 
lations. He begins by laying down clearly and broadly 
the distinction, which, as we have seen, is of primary 
importance, between practice and theory. Practice, he 
says, includes seven mechanical arts; those of the 
clothier, the armourer, the navigator, the hunter, the 
physician, and the player. Theory is threefold, divine, 
natural, doctrinal ; and is thus divided into Theology, 
Physics, and Mathematics. Mathematics, he adds, 
treats of the invisible forms of visible things. We 
have seen that by many profound thinkers this word 
forms has been selected as best fitted to describe those 
relations of things which are the subject of mathema- 
tics. Again, Physics discovers causes from their effects 
and effects from their causes. It would not be easy 
at the present day to give a better account of the ob- 
ject of physical science. But Richard of St. Victor 
makes this account still more remarkably judicious, 
by the examples to which he alludes ; which are 
earthquakes, the tides, the virtues of plants, the in- 
stincts of animals, the classification of minerals, plants 
and reptiles. 

TJnde tremor terris, qu^ vi maria alta tumescant, 

Herbarum vires, animos irasque ferarum, 

Oiniie genus fruticura, lapidum quoque, reptiliumque. 



2 Liher Excerptionum, Lib. i. c. i. 



SCHOOLMEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 53 

He further adds', "Physical science ascends from 
effects to causes, and descends again from causes to 
effects." This declaration Francis Bacon himself 
might have adopted. It is true, that E-ichard would 
probably have been little able to produce any clear 
and definite instances of knowledge, in which this 
ascent and descent were exemplified; but still the 
statement, even considered as a mere conjectural 
thought, contains a portion of that sagacity and com- 
prehensive power which we admire so much in Bacon. 
Bichard of St. Yictor, who lived in the twelfth 
century, thus exhibits more vigour and independence 
of speculative power than Thomas Aquinas, Albertus 
Magnus, and Duns Scotus, in the thirteenth. In the 
interval, about the end of the twelfth century, the 
writings of Aristotle had become generally known in 
the West ; and had been elevated into the standard of 
philosophical doctrine, by the divines mentioned above, 
who felt a reverent sympathy with the systematizing 
and subtle spirit of the Stagirite as soon as it was 
made manifest to them. These doctors, following the 
example of their great forerunner, reduced every part 
of human knowledge to a systematic form; the sys- 
tems which they thus framed were presented to men's 
minds as the only true philosophy, and dissent from 
them was no longer considered to be blameless. It was 
an offence against religion as well as reason to reject 
the truth, and the truth could be but one. In this 
manner arose that claim which the Doctors of the 
Church put forth to control men's opinions upon all 
subjects, and which we have spoken of in the History 
of Science as the Dogmatism of the Middle Ages. 
There is no difficulty in giving examples of this cha- 
racteristic. We may take for instance a Statute of 
the University of Paris, occasioned by a Bull of Pope 
John XXI., in which it is enacted, " that no Master 
or Bachelor of any faculty, shall presume to read lec- 
tures upon any author in a private room, on account 
of the many perils which may arise therefrom; but 



3 Tr. Ex. Lib. i c vii. 



54 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY, 

shall read in public places, where all may resort, and 
may faithfully report what is there taught ; excepting 
only books of Grammar and Logic, in which there can 
be no presumption." And certain errors of Brescian 
are condemned in a Rescript^ of the papal Legate 
Odo, with the following expressions : " Whereas, as 
we have been informed, certain Logical professors 
treating of Theology in their disputations, and Theo- 
logians treating of Logic, contrary to the command of 
the law are not afraid to mix and confound the lots 
of the Lord's heritage; we exhort and admonish your 
University, all and singular, that they be content with 
the landmarks of the Sciences and Faculties which 
our Fathers have fixed; and that having due fear of 
the curse pronounced in the law against him who 
removeth his neighbour's landmark, you hold such 
sober wisdom according to the Apostles, that ye may 
by no means incur the blame of innovation or pre- 
sumption." 

The account which, in ih.e History of Science, I gave 
of Dogmatism as a characteristic of the middle ages, 
has been indignantly rejected by a very pleasing- 
modern wiiter, who has, with great feeling and great 
diligence, brought into view the merits and beauties 
of those times, termed by him Ages of Faith. He 
urges ^ that religious authority was never claimed for 
physical science : and he quotes from Thomas Aquinas, 
a passage in which the author protests against the 
practice of confounding opinions of philosophy with 
doctrines of faith. We might quote in return the Re- 
script^ of Stephen, bishop of Paris, in which he declares 
that there can be but one truth, and rejects the dis- 
tinction of things being true according to philosophy 
and not according to the Catholic faith ; and it might 
be added, that among the errors condemned in this 
document are some of Thomas Aquinas himself. We 
might further observe, that if no physical doctrines 



■* Tenneman, ToiL 461. 

* Mores Catholici, or Ages of Faith, viiL p. 247. 

^ Tenneman, viiL 46a 



SCHOOLMEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 55 

were condemned in the times of which we now speak, 
this was because, on such subjects, no new opinions 
were promulgated, and not because opinion was free. 
As soon as new opinions, even on physical subjects, 
attracted general notice, they were prohibited by 
authority, as we see in the case of G-alileo^. 

But this disinclination to recognize philosophy as 
independent of religion, and this disposition to find in 
new theories, even in physical ones, something contrary 
to religion or scripture, are, it would seem, very na- 
tural tendencies of theologians; and it would be unjust 
to assert that these propensities were confined to the 
periods when the authority of papal Rome was highest ; 
or that the spirit which has in a great degree con- 
trolled and removed such habits was introduced by 
the Reformation of religion in the sixteenth century. 
We must trace to other causes, the clear and general 
recognition of Philosophy, as distinct from Theology, 
and independent of her authority. In the earlier ages 
of the Church, indeed, this separation had been ac- 
knowledged. St. Augustin says, " A Christian should 
beware how he speaks on questions of natural philo- 
sophy, as if they were doctrines of Holy Scripture; for 



^ If there were any doubt on tliis (Tenneman, ix. 43.) We might urge 

subject, we might refer to the writers too, the evasions practised by philo- 

who afterwards questioned the su- sophical Reformers, through fear of 

premacy of Aristotle, and who with the dogmatism to which they had to 

one voice assert that an infallible submit; for example, the protesta- 

authority had been claimed for htm. tion of Telesius at the end of the 

Thus Laurentius VaUa : " Quo minus Proem to his work, De Berum Na- 

ferendi sunt recentes Peripatetic!, tura: "Nee tamen, si quid eorum 

qui nullius sectse homiuibus iuterdi- quae nobis posita sunt, sacris Uteris, 

cunt libertate ab Aristotele dissenti- Catholicaeve ecclesiae decretis non 

endi, quasi sophos hie, non phUoso- cohsereat, tenendum id, quin penitus 

phus." Pre/. mDiaJ. (Tenneman, ix. rejiciendum asseveramus contendi- 

29.) So Ludovicus Yives : " Sunt ex musque. Neque enim humana modo 

philosophis et ex theologis qui non ratio quaevis, sed ipse etiam sensus 

solum quo Aristoteles pervenit ex- illis posthdbendus, et si Ulis non con- 

tremimi esse aiunt naturae, sed quS, gruat, abnegandus omnino et ipse 

pervenit eam rectissimam esse om- etiam est sensus." 
nium et certissimam in natura viam." 



56 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

an infidel who should hear him deliver absurdities 
could not avoid laughing. Thus the Christian would 
be confused, and the infidel but little edified ; for the 
infidel would conclude that our authors really enter- 
tained these extravagant opinions, and therefore they 
would despise them, to their own eternal ruin. There- 
fore the opinions of philosophers should never be pro- 
posed as dogmas of faith, or rejected as contrary to 
faith, when it is not certain that they are so." These 
words are quoted with approbation by Thomas Aqui- 
nas, and it is said^, are cited in the same manner in 
every encyclopedical work of the middle ages. This 
warning of genuine wisdom was afterwards rejected, 
as we have seen; and it is only in modern times that 
its value has again been fully recognized. And this 
improvement we must ascribe, mainly, to the progress 
of physical science. For a great body of undeniable 
truths on physical subjects being accumulated, such as 
had no reference to nor connexion with the truths of 
religion, and yet such as possessed a strong interest for 
most men's minds, it was impossible longer to deny 
that there were wide provinces of knowledge which 
were not included in the dominions of Theology, and 
over which she had no authority. In the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries, the fundamental doctrines of 
mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, magnetics, chemistry, 
were established and promulgated; and along with 
them, a vast train of consequences, attractive to the 
mind by the .ideal relations which they exhibited, and 
striking to the senses by the power which they gave 
man over nature. Here was a region in which philo- 
sophy felt herself entitled and impelled to assert her 
independence. From this region, there is a gradation 
of subjects in which philosophy advances more and 
more towards the peculiar domain of religion ; and at 
some intermediate points there have been, and pro- 
bably will always be, conflicts respecting the boundary 



« Ages of Faith, viii. 247 : to the author of which I am obliged for this 
quotation. 



SCHOOLMEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 5/ 

line of the two fields of speculation. For the limit is 
vague and obscui-e, and aj^peare to fluctuate and shift 
with the progress of time and knowledge. 

Oui' business at present is not with the whole ex- 
tent and limits of philosophy, but with the progTess of 
physical science more particularly, and the methods by 
which it may be attained : and we are endeavoui'ing 
to trace historically the views which have prevailed 
respecting such methods, at various periods of man's 
intellectual progress. Among the most conspicuous of 
the revolutions which opinions on this subject have 
undergone, is the transition from an implicit trust in 
the internal powers of man's mind to a professed de- 
pendence upon external observation; and from an un- 
bounded reverence for the wisdom of the past, to a 
fervid expectation of change and improvement. The 
origin and progress of this disposition of mind; — ^the 
introduction of a state of things in which men not 
only obtained a body of indestructible truths from 
experience, and increased it from generation to gene- 
ration, but professedly, and we may say, ostenta- 
tiously, declared such to be the source of their know- 
ledge, and such their hopes of its destined career; — 
the rise, in short, of Experimental Philosophy, not 
only as a habit, but as a Philosophy of Experience, is 
what we must now endeavour to exhibit. 



CHAPTEK X. 
The Innovators of the Middle Ages. 



Raymond Lully. 

I. General Remarlcs. — In the rise of Experimental 
PMlosophy, understanding the term in the way just 
now stated, two features have already been alluded to : 
the disposition to cast off the prevalent reverence for 
the opinions and methods of preceding teachers with 
an eager expectation of some vast advantage to be de- 
rived from a change ; and the belief that this improve- 
ment must be sought by drawing our knowledge from 
external observation rather than from mere intellectual 
efforts ; — the Insurrection against Authority, and the 
Appeal to Experience. These two movements were 
closely connected ; but they may easily be distinguished, 
and in fact, persons were very prominent in the former 
pai-t of the task, who had no comprehension of the lat- 
ter principle, from which alone the change derives its 
value. There were many Malcontents who had not 
the temper, talent or knowledge, which fitted them to 
be Reformers. 

The authority which was questioned, in the struggle 
of which we speak, was that of the Scholastic System, 
the combination of Philosophy with Theology; of which 
Aristotle, presented in the form and manner which the 
Doctors of the Church had imposed upon him, is to be 
considered the representative. When there was de- 
manded of men a submission of the mind, such as this 
system claimed, the natural love of freedom in man's 
bosom, and the speculative tendencies of his intellect, 
rose in rebellion, from time to time, against the ruling 
oppression. We find in all periods of the scholastic 
ages examples of this disposition of man to resist over- 



INNOVATORS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 59 

strained authority; the tendency being mostly, how- 
ever, combined with a want of solid thought, and 
showing itself in extravagant pretensions and fantasti- 
cal systems put forwards by the insurgents. We have 
pointed out one such opponent^ of the established sys- 
tems, even among the Arabian schoolmen, a more 
servile race than ever the Europeans were. We may 
here notice more especially an extraordinary character 
who appeared in the thirteenth century, and who may 
be considered as belonging to the Prelude of the Re- 
form in Philosophy, although he had no share in the 
Keform itself 

2. Raymond Lully. — Raymond Lully is perhaps 
traditionally best known as an Alchemist, of which 
art be appears to have been a cultivator. But this 
was only one of the many impulses of a spirit ardently 
thirsty of knowledge and novelty. He had^, in his 
youth, been a man of pleasure, but was driven by a 
sudden shock of feeling to resolve on a complete change 
of life. He plunged into solitude, endeavoured to still 
the remorse of his conscience by prayer and penance, 
and soon had his soul possessed by visions which he 
conceived were vouchsafed to him. In the feeling of 
religious enthusiasm thus excited, he resolved to de- 
vote his life to the diffusion of Chiistian truth among 
Heathens and Mahomedans. For this purpose, at the 
age of thirty he betook himself to the study of Gram- 
mar, and of the Arabic language. He breathed earnest 
supplications for an illumination from above ; and these 
were answered by his receiving from heaven, as his 
admirers declare, his Ars Jfagna by which he was able 
without labour or effort to learn and apply aU know- 
ledge. The real state of the case is, that he put him- 
self in opposition to the established systems, and pro- 
pounded a 'Ne^ Art, from which he promised the most 
wonderful results; but that his Art really is merely a 
mode of combining ideal conceptions without any re- 
ference to real sources of knowledge, or any possibility 



1 Algazel. See Hist. Ind. Sc. b. iv. c. i. 
2 Tenneman, viii 830. 



1- 



60- PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVEPvY. 

of real advantage. In a Treatise addressed, in A.D. 
1 310, to King Philip of France, entitled Liber La- 
mentationis Duodecim Frincipiorum PhilosopMce contra 
Averroistas, LiiUy introduced Philosophy, accompanied 
by her twelve Principles, (Matter, Form, Generation, 
&c.) nttering loud complaints against the prevailing 
system of doctrine; and represents her as presenting 
to the king a petition that she may be upheld and 
restored by her favourite, the Author. His Tabula 
Generalis ad omnes Scientias applicabilis was begun 
the 15th September, [292, in the Harbour of Tunis, 
and finished in 1293, at Naples. In order to frame an 
Art of thus tabulating all existing sciences, and indeed 
all possible knowledge, he divides into various classes 
the conceptions with which he has to deal. The fii'st 
class contains nine Absolute Conceptions: Goodness, 
Greatness, Duration, Power, Wisdom, Will, Yirtue, 
Truth, Majesty. The second class has nine Relative 
Conceptions: Difference, Identity, Contrariety, Begin- 
ning, Middle, End, Majority, Equality, Minority. The 
third class contains nine Questions : Whether ? What 1 
Whence? Why? How great? How circumstanced? 
When? Where? and How? The fourth class contains 
the nine Host General Subjects: God, Angel, Heaven, 
Man, Imaginativum, Sensitivum, Vegetativum, Elemen- 
tativum, Instrumentativum. Then come nine Prcedica- 
ments, nine Moral Qualities, and so on. These con- 
ceptions are arranged in the compartments of certain 
concentric moveable circles, and give various combina- 
tions by means of triangles and other figures, and thus 
propositions are constructed. 

It must be clear at once, that real knowledge, which 
is the union of facts and ideas, can never result from 
this machinery for shifting about, joining and disjoin- 
ing, empty conceptions. This, and all similar schemes, 
go upon the supposition that the logical combinations of 
notions do of themselves compose knowledge ; and that 
really existing things may be arrived at by a successive 
system of derivation from our most general ideas. It 
is imagined that by distributing the nomenclature of 
abstract ideas according to the place which they can 



INNOVATORS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 6 1 



liold in onr propositions, and by combining tliem ac- 
cording to certain conditions, we may obtain formulsa 
including all possible truths, and thus fabricate a 
science in which all sciences are contained. We thus 
obtain the means of talking and writing upon all sub- 
jects, without the trouble of thinking : the revolutions 
of the emblematical figures are substituted for the 
operations of the mind. Both exertion of thought, 
and knowledge of facts, become superfluous. And this 
reflection, adds an intelligent author^, explains the 
enormous number of books which LuUy is said to have 
written; for he might have written those even during 
his sleep, by the aid of a moving power which should 
keep his machine in motion. Having once de-\dsed 
this invention for manufacturing science, Lully varied 
it in a thousand ways, and followed it into a variety 
of developments. Besides Synoptical Tables, he em- 
ploys Genealogical Trees, each of which he dignifies 
Avith the name of the Tree of Science. The only requi- 
site for the application of his System was a certain 
agreement in the numbers of the classes into which 
difierent subjects were distributed; and as this sym- 
metry does not really exist in the operations of our 
thoughts, some violence was done to the natural dis- 
tinction and subordination of conceptions, in order to 
fit them for the use of the system. 

Thus Lully, while he professed to teach an Art 
which was to shed new light upon every part of 
science, was in fact employed in a pedantic and trifling 
repetition of known truths or truisms; and while he 
complained of the errors of existing methods, he pro- 
posed in their place one which was far more empty, 
barren, and worthless, than the customary processes of 
human thought. Yet his method is spoken of ^ with 



3 Degerando, iv. 535. 

■* Leibnitz's expressions are, (Op. t. 
vL p. 16) : "Quand j'gtais jeune, je 
prenois quelqiie a VArt de Lulle, mais 
ju cms y entrevoir bien des dgfectuo- 
sit6s, dont j'ai dit quelque chose dans 
un petit Essai d'gcolier intitule De 



Arte CombincdoHa, publie en 1666, et 
qui a ete reimprime aprSs malgre moi. 
Mais comme je ne meprise rien facile- 
ment, excepte les arts divinatoires 
que ne sent que des tromperies toutes 
pures, j'ai trouve quelque chose d'es- 
timable encore dans VArt de LuUe." 



62 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

some praise by Leibnitz, wbo indeed rather delighted 
in the region of ideas and words, than in the world of 
realities. But Francis Bacon speaks far otherwise and 
more justly on this subject ^ " It is not to be omitted 
that some men, swollen with emptiness rather than 
knowledge, have laboured to produce a certain Method, 
not deserving the name of a legitimate Method, since 
it is rather a method of imposture : which yet is 
doubtless highly grateful to certain would-be philoso- 
phers. This method scatters about certain little drops 
of science in such a manner that a smatterer may 
m.ake a perverse and ostentatious use of them with a 
certain show of learning. Such was the art of Lully, 
which consisted of nothing but a mass and heap of the 
words of each science j with the intention that he who 
can readily j)roduce the words of any science shall be 
supposed to know the science itself Such collections 
are like a rag shop, where you find a patch of every- 
thing, but nothing which is of any value." 



5 fVorls, vii. 296. 



*^?^ 



CHAPTER XI. 

The IifNOVATORS of the Middle Ages — continued. 



Roger Bacon. 

WE now come to a philosopher of a very different j i 

character, who was impelled to declare his dissent ' ' 

from the reigning philosophy by the abundance of his j 

knowledge, and by his clear apprehension of the mode i 

in which real knowledge had been acquired and must 1 

be increased. 

Roger Bacon was born in 12 14, near Ilchester, in 
Somersetshire, of an old family. In his youth he was 
a student at Oxford, and made extraordinary progress 
in all branches of learning. He then went to the 

tlniversity of Paris, as was at that time the custom ,; 

of learned Englishmen, and there received the degree : 

of Doctor of Theology. At the persuasion of Robert ' ' 

Grostete, bishop of Lincoln, he entered the brother- 
hood of Franciscans in Oxford, and gave himself up to 
study with extraordinary fervour. He was termed by 
his brother monks Doctor Mirahilis. We know from 
his own works, as well as from the traditions concern- 
ing him, that he possessed an intimate acquaintance ■ 
with all the science of his time which could be ac- 
quired from books; and that he had made many re- 
markable advances by means of his own experimental '■*• 
labours. He was acquainted with Arabic, as well as V 
with the other languages common in his time. In i 
the title of his works, we find the whole range of 
science and philosophy, Mathematics and Mechanics, \ 
Optics, Astronomy, Geography, Chronology, Chemistry, 
Magic, Music, Medicine, Grammar, Logic, Metaphysics, 

Ethics, and Theology; and judging from those which j 

are published, these works are full of sound and exact 



64 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

knowledge. He is, with good reason, supposed to 
I have discovered, or to have had some knowledge of, 

several of the most remarkable inventions which were 
made generally known soon afterwards; as gunpow- 
der, lenses, burning specula, telescopes, clocks, the 
) correction of the calendar, and the explanation of the 

rainbow. 

Thus possessing, in the acquirements and habits of 
his own mind, abundant examples of the nature of 
1 knowledge and of the process of invention, Koger 

■ Bacon felt also a deep interest in the growth and pro- 

gress of science, a spirit of inquiry respecting the 
causes which produced or prevented its advance, and 
a fervent hope and trust in its future destinies; and 
m i these feelings impelled him to speculate worthily and 

wisely respecting a Reform of the Method of Philoso- 
phizing. The manuscripts of his works have existed 
for nearly six hundred years in many of the libraries 
of Europe, and especially in those of England; and 
for a long period the very imperfect portions of them 
which were generally known, left the character and 
; attain ments of the author shrouded in a kind of mys- 

terious obscurity. About a century ago, however, his 
Opus Majus was published^ by Dr. S. Jebb, princi- 
pally from a manuscript in the Library of Trinity 
College, Dublin ; and this contained most or all of the 
separate works which were previously known to the 
public, along with others still more peculiar and cha- 
1 ract eristic. We are thus able to judge of Roger 

' Bacon's knowledge and of his views, and they are in 

every w^ay well worthy our attention. 

The Opus Majus is addressed to Pope Clement the 
Eourth, whom Bacon had known when he was legate 
in England as Cardinal-bishop of Sabina, and who 
admired the talents of the monk, and pitied him for 
the persecutions to which he was exposed. On his 
elevation to the papal chair, this account of Bacon's 



1 Fratris Rogeri Bacon, Ordinis Mi- MS. Codice DuUiniensi cum aliis qui- 
norum, Opus Majus, ad Clementem husdam collato, nunc primum edidit 
Quartum, Pontificem Bomanum, ex S. Jebb, M.D. Londini, 1733. 



INNOVATORS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 65 

labours and views was sent, at the earnest request of 
the pontiff. Besides the Opus Majus, he wrote two 
others, the Opus Minus and Opus Tertium; which 
were also sent to the pope, as the author says^, "on 
account of the danger of roads, and the possible loss 
of the work." These works still exist unpublished, 
in the Cotton ian and other libraries. 

The Opus Majus is a work equally wonderful with 
regard to its general scheme, and to the special trea- 
tises with which the outlines of the plan are filled up. 
The professed object of the work is to urge the neces- 
sity of a reform in the mode of philosophizing, to set 
forth the reasons why knowledge had not made a 
greater progress, to draw back attention to the sources 
of knowledge which had been unwisely neglected, to 
discover other sources which were yet almost un- 
touched, and to animate men in the undertaking, by a 
prospect of the vast advantages which it ofiered. In 
the development of this plan, all the leading portions 
of science are expounded in the most complete shape 
which they had at that time assumed; and improve- 
ments of a very wide and striking kind are proposed 
in some of the principal of these departments. Even 
if the work had had no leading purpose, it would have 
been highly valuable as a treasure of the most solid 
knowledge and soundest speculations of the time; even 
if it had contained no such details, it would have been 
a work most remarkable for its general views and 
scope. It may be considered as, at the same time, the 
Encyclopedia and the Novum Organon of the thir- 
teenth century. 

Since this work is thus so important in the history 
of Inductive Philosophy I shall give, in a note, a view* 



2 Opus Majus, Praef. Part II. On the source of perfect 

3 Contents of Eoger Bacon's Opus wisdom in the Sacred Scrip- 
Majus. ture. 

Parti. On the four causes of human Part III. On the Usefulness of 

ignorance :— Authority, Custom, Grammar. 

Popular Opinion, and the Pride Part IV. On the Usefulness of Ma- 

of supposed Knowledge. thematics. 



66 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

of its divisions and contents. But I must now endea- 
vour to point out more especially the way in which 
the various principles, which the reform of scientific 
method involved, are here brought into view. 

One of the first points to be noticed for this pur- 
pose, is the resistance to authority ; and at the stage 
of philosophical history with which we here have to 
do, this means resistance to the authority of Aristotle, 
as adopted and interpreted by the Doctors of the 
Schools. Bacon's woyk* is divided into Six Parts; and 
of these Parts, the First is, Of the four universal 
Causes of all Human Ignorance. The causes thus 
enumerated^ are : — the force of unworthy authority; 
— traditionary habit; — the imperfection of the undis- 
ciplined senses; — and the disposition to conceal our 
ignorance and to make an ostentatious show of our 
knowledge. These influences involve every man, oc- 
cupy every condition. They prevent our obtaining 
the most useful and large and fair doctrines of wisdom, 
the secret of all sciences and arts. He then proceeds 
to argue, from the testimony of philosophers them- 
selves, that the authority of antiquity, and especially 
of Aristotle, is not infallible. " We find^ their books 
full of doubts, obscurities, and perplexities. They 
scarce agree with each other in one empty question or 



(i) The necessity of Mathematics in (4) The necessity of Mathematics in 

Human Things (published se- the State.— 1°. Of Climates : 2°. 

parately as the Specula Mathe- Hydrography : 3°. Geography : 

matica). 4°. Astrology, 

{2) The necessity of Mathematics in Part V, On Perspective (published 

Divine Things,— 1°, This study separately as Perspectiva). 

has occupied holy men : 2°, (i) The organs of vision. 

Geography : 3°, Chronology : 4°. (2) Vision in straight lines. 

Cycles ; the Golden Number, (3) Vision reflected and refracted. 

&c, : 5°. Natural Phenomena, (4) De multiplicatione specierum 

as the Eainbow : 6°. Arithme- (on the propagation of the im- 

tic : 7°. Music. pressions of light, heat, &c) 

(3) The necessity of Mathematics in Part VI. On Experimental Science. 

Ecclesiastical Things. 1°. The * Op. Maj. p. i. 

Certification of Faith : 2°. The ^ m^^ p 2. 

Correction of the Calendar. ^ Ibid, p, 10. 



INNOVATORS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. Gj 

one worthless sopMsm, or one operation of science, as 
one man agrees with another in the practical operations 
of medicine, surgery, and the like arts of Secular 
men. Indeed," he adds, " not only the philosophers, 
but the saints have fallen into errors which they have 
afterwards retracted," and this he instances in Augus- 
tin, Jerome, and others. He gives an admirable 
sketch^ of the progress of philosophy from the Ionic 
School to Aristotle; of whom he speaks with great 
applause. " Yet," he adds^, " those who came after 
him corrected him in some things, and added many 
things to his works, and shall go on adding to the end 
of the world." Aristotle, he adds, is now called pecu- 
liarly^ "the Philosopher, "yet there was a time when 
his philosophy was silent and unregarded, either on 
account of the rarity of copies of his works, or their dif- 
ficulty, or from envy; till after the time of Mahomet, 



' I will give a specimen. Opus 
Majus, c. viii p. 35 : " These two kinds 
of philosophers, the Ionic and Italic, 
ramified through many sects and 
various successors, till they came to 
the doctrine of Aristotle, who cor- 
rected and changed the propositions 
of all his predecessors, and attempted 
to perfect philosophy. In the [Italic] 
succession, Pythagoras, Archytas Ta- 
rentinus and Timaeus are most pro- 
minently mentioned. But the prin- 
cipal philosophers, as Socrates, Plato, 
and Aristotle, did not descend from 
this line, but were Ionics and true 
Greeks, of whom the first was Thales 
Milesius. . . Socrates, according to Au- 
gustine in his 8th book, is related to 
have been a disciple of Archelaus. 
This Socrates is called the father of 
the great philosophers, since he was 
the master of Plato andAristotle, from 
whom aU the sects of philosophers 
descended. ..Plato, first learning what 



Socrates and Greece could teach, made 
a laborious voyage to Egypt, to Ar- 
chytas of Tarentum and Timaeus, as 
says Jerome to PauUnus. And this 
Plato is, according to holy men, pre- 
ferred to aU philosophers, because he 
has written many excellent things con- 
cerning God, and morality, and a fu- 
ture life, which agree with the divine 
wisdom of God. And Aristotle was 
born before the death of Socrates, 
since he was his hearer for three 
years, as we read in the life of 
Aristotle . . . This Aristotle, being 
made the master of Alexander the 
Great, sent two thousand men into 
aU regions of the earth, to search out 
the nature of things, as Pliny relates 
in the 8th book of his Naturalia, and 
composed a thousand books, as we 
read in his life." 

8 Ibid. p. 36. 

9 Autonomatici. 

F 2 



68 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

when Avicenna and Averroes, and others, recalled 
this philosophy into the full light of exposition. And 
although the Logic and some other works were trans- 
lated by Boethius from the Greek, yet the philoso- 
phy of Aristotle first received a quick increase among 
the Latins at the time of Michael Scot ; who, in the 
year of our Lord 1230, appeared, bringing with him 
portions of the books of Aristotle on Natural Philo- 
sophy and Mathematics. And yet a small part only 
of the works of this author is translated, and a still 
smaller part is in the hands of common students." 
He adds further^" (in the Third Part of the Opus 
Majus, which is a Dissertation on language), that the 
translations which are current of these writings, are 
very bad and imperfect. With these views, he is 
moved to express himself somewhat impatiently" re- 
specting these works: "If I had," he says, "power 
over the works of Aristotle, I would have them all 
burnt; for it is only a loss of time to study in them, 
and a cause of error, and a multij)lication of ignorance 
beyond expression." " The common herd of students," 
he says, "with their heads, have no principle by which 
they can be excited to any worthy employment; and 
hence they mope and make asses of themselves over 
their bad translations, and lose their time, and trouble, 
and money." 

The remedies which he recommends for these evils, 
are, in the first place, the study of that only jDerfect 
wisdom which is to be found in the sacred Scripture^", 
in the next place, the study of mathematics and the 
use of experiment ^^ By the aid of these methods. 



10 Op. Maj. p. 46. ignorantise ultra id quod valeat ex- 

11 See Pref. to Jebb's edition. The plicari Viilgus studentum cum 

passages, there quoted, however, are capitibus suis non habet unde exci- 

not extracts from the Opus Majus, but tetur ad aliquid dignum, et ideo lan- 

(apparently) from the Opus Minus guet et asininat circa male translata, 

(MS. Cott. Tib. c. 5.) " Si haberem et tempus et studium amittit in om- 

potestatem supra libros Aristotelis, nibus et expensas." 

ego facerem omnes cremari ; quia non 12 part ii. 

est nisi temporis amissio studere in 1^ parts iv. v, and vi. 

llis, et causa erroris, et multiplicatio 



INNOVATORS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 69 

I 
Bacon anticipates tlie most splendid progress for human 
knowledge. He takes up the strain of hope and 
confidence which we have noticed as so peculiar in 
the Roman writers ; and quotes some of the passages I 

of Seneca which we adduced in illustration of this : — • 
that the attempts in science were at first rude and 
imperfect, and were afterwards improved; — that the 
day will come, when what is still unknown shall be I 

brought to light by the progress of time and the g' 

labours of a longer period; — that one age does not ^^\ 

suffice for inquiries so wide and various; — that the 
people of future times shall know many things un- 
known to us; — and that the time shall arrive when 
posterity will wonder that we overlooked what was so 
obvious. Bacon himself adds anticipations more pecu- 
liarly in the spirit of his own time. " We have seen,'* 
he says, at the end of the work, " how Aristotle, by 
the ways which wisdom teaches, could give to Alex- 
ander the empire of the world. And this the Church 
ought to take into consideration against the infidels 
and rebels, that there may be a sparing of Christian 
blood, and especially on account of the troubles that 
shall come to pass in the days of Antichrist; which 
by the grace of God, it would be easy to obviate, if 
prelates and princes would encourage study, and join 
in searching out the secrets of nature and art." 

It may not be improper to observe here that this 
belief in the appointed progress of knowledge, is not 
combined with any overweening belief in the un- 
bounded and independent power of the human intellect. 
On the contrary, one of the lessons which Bacon draws 
from the state and prospects of knowledge, is the duty 
of faith and humility. "To him," he says^*, "who 
denies the truth of the faith because he is unable to 
understand it, I will propose in reply the course of 
nature, and as we have seen it in examples." And 
after giving some instances, he adds, " These, and the 
like, ought to move men and to excite them to the 
reception of divine truths. For if, in the vilest objects 



1-* Oj>. Maj. p. 476. 



70 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

of creation, truths are found, before which the inward 
pride of man must bow, and believe though it cannot 
understand, how much more should man humble his 
mind before the glorious truths of God!" He had 
before said^^: "Man is incapable of perfect wisdom in 
this life J it is hard for him to ascend towards perfec- 
tion, easy to glide downwards to falsehoods and vani- 
ties : let him then not boast of his wisdom, or extol 
his knowledge. What he knows is little and worth- 
less, in respect of that which he believes without know- 
ing ; and still less, in respect of that which he is igno- 
rant of. He is mad who thinks highly of his wisdom ; 
he most mad, who exhibits it as something to be won- 
dered at." He adds, as another reason for humility, 
that he has proved by trial, he could teach in one year, 
to a poor boy, the marrow of all that the most diligent 
person could acquire in forty years' laborious and ex- 
pensive study. 

To proceed somewhat more in detail with regard to 
Roger Bacon's views of a Reform in Scientific Inquiry, 
we may observe that by making Mathematics and Ex- 
periment the two great points of his recommendation, 
he directed his improvement to the two essential parts 
of all knowledge, Ideas and Facts, and thus took the 
course which the most enlightened philosophy would 
have suggested. He did not urge the prosecution of 
experiment, to the comparative neglect of the existing 
mathematical sciences and conception; a fault which 
there is some ground for ascribing to his great name- 
sake and successor Francis Bacon: still less did he 
content himself with a mere protest against the au- 
thority of the schools, and a vague demand for change, 
which was almost all that was done by those who put 
themselves forward as reformers in the intermediate 
time. Roger Bacon holds his way steadily between 
the two poles of human knowledge; which, as we have 
seen, it is far from easy to do. " There are two modes 
of knowing," says he^*""; "by argument, and by experi- 



1^ Op. Maj.-p. 15. "ScientifB alise sciiint sua principia 

1^ Ibid. p. 445, see also p. 448. invenire per experimenta, sed con- 



INNOVATOKS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 7 1 

ment. Argument concludes a question; but it does 
not make us feel certain, or acquiesce in the contem- 
plation of truth, except the truth be also found to be 
so by experience." It is not easy to express more 
decidedly the clearly seen union of exact conceptions 
with certain facts, which, as we have explained, consti- 
tutes real knowledge. 

One large division of the Opus Majus is "On the 
Usefulness of Mathematics," which is shown by a copi- 
ous enumeration of existing branches of knowledge, as 
Chronology, Geography, the Calendar and (in a sepa- 
rate Part) Optics. There is a chapter -', in which it 
is proved by reason, that all science requires mathe- 
matics. And the arguments which are used to es- 
tablish this doctrine, show a most just appreciation of 
the office of mathematics in science. They are such as 
follows : — That other sciences use examples taken from 
mathematics as the most evident : — That mathematical 
knowledge is, as it were, innate in us, on which jDoint 
he refers to the well-known dialogue of Plato, as 
quoted by Cicero : — That this science, being the easi- 
est, offers the best introduction to the more difficult : 
— That in mathematics, things as known to us are 
identical with things as known to nature : — That we 
can here entirely avoid doubt and error, and obtain 
certainty and truth : — That mathematics is prior to 
other sciences in nature, because it takes cognizance of 
quantity, which is apprehended by intuition, (intuitu 
intellectus). "Moreover," he adds^^, "there have been 
found famous men, as Pobert, bishop of Lincoln, and 
Brother Adam Marshman (de Marisco), and many 
others, who by the power of mathematics have been 
able to explain the causes of things ; as may be seen 
in the writings of these men, for instance, concerning 
the Painbow and Comets, and the generation of heat, 
and climates, and the celestial bodies." 



clusiones per argumenta facta ex tunc oportet quod habeant per adju- 

principiis inventis. Si vero debeant torium istius scientiae nobilis (expe- 

habere experientiam conclusionum rimentalis)." 

suarum particularem et completam, 1^ Op. Maj. p. 60. ^^ Ibid. p. 64. 



72 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

But undoubtedly the most remarkable portion of the 
Opus Majus is the Sixth and last Part, which is en- 
titled "De Scientia experimentali." It is indeed an 
extraordinary circumstance to find a writer of the 
thirteenth century, not only recognizing experiment 
as one source of knowledge, but urging its claims as 
something far more important than men had yet been 
aware of, exemplifying its value by striking and just 
examples, and speaking of its authority with a dignity 
of diction which sounds like a foremurmur of the Ba- 
conian sentences uttered nearly four hundred years 
later. Yet this is the character of what we here fiIld^^ 
"Experimental science, the sole mistress of speculative 
sciences, has three great Prerogatives among other 
parts of knowledge : First she tests by experiment the 
noblest conclusions of all other sciences: Next she 
discovers respecting the notions which other sciences 
deal with, magnificent truths to which these sciences 
of themselves can by no means attain : her Third dig- 
nity is, that she by her own power and without respect 
of other sciences, investigates the secret of nature." 

The examples which Bacon gives of these "Preroga- 
tives" are very curious, exhibiting, among some error 
and credulity, sound and clear views. His leading 
example of the First Prerogative, is the Bainbow, of 
which the cause, as given by Aristotle, is tested by 
reference to experiment with a skill which is, even to 
us now, truly admirable. The examples of the Second 
L^i j Prerogative are three: — first, the art of making an 

[jlili I 1 artificial sphere which shall move with the heavens by 

natural influences, which Bacon trusts may be done, 
though astronomy herself cannot do it — "et tunc," he 
says, "thesaurum unius regis valeret hoc instrumen- 
tum;" — secondly, the art of prolonging life, which 
experiment may teacfh, though medicine has no means 
of securing it except by regimen""; — thirdly, the art of 



19 " Veritates magnificas in termi- lativaruni, potest dare." Op. Maj. 

nis aliarum scientiarum in quas per p, 465. 

uullam viam possunt illae scientias, 20 One of the ingredients of a pre- 

h83C sola scientianun doniina specu- paration liere mentioned, is the flesh 



INNOVATORS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 73 

making gold finer than fine gold, which, goes beyond 
the power of alchemy. The Third Prerogative of ex- 
perimental science, arts independent of the received 
sciences, is exemplified in many curious examples, many 
of them whimsical traditions. Thus it is said that the 
character of a people may be altered by altering the 
air^\ Alexander, it seems, applied to Aristotle to 
know whether he should exterminate certain nations 
which he had discovered, as being irreclaimably bar- 
barous ; to which the philosopher replied, " If you can 
alter their air, permit them to live, if not, put them to 
death." In this part, we find the suggestion that the 
fire-works made by children, of saltpetre, might lead 
to the invention of a formidable military weapon. 

It could not be expected that Koger Bacon, at a 
time when experimental science hardly existed, could 
give any precepts for the discovery of truth by experi- 
ment. But nothing can be a better example of the 
method of such investigation, than his inquiry con- 
cerning the cause of the Hainbow. Neither Aristotle, 
nor Avicenna, nor Seneca, he says, have given us any 
clear knowledge of this matter, but experimental 
science can do so. Let the experimenter [experinien- 
tator) consider the cases in which he finds the same 
colours, as the hexagonal crystals from Ireland and 
India; by looking into these he will see colours like 
those of the rainbow. Many think that this arises 
from some special virtue of these stones and their hex- 
agonal figure; let therefore the experimenter go on, 
and he will find the same in other transparent stones, 
in dark ones as well as in light-coloured. He will find 
the same efi'ect also in other forms than the hexagon, 



of a dragon, which it appears is used them, and make them bound about 

as food by the Ethiopians. The mode in the air in a violent manner, that 

of preparing this food cannot faU to the hardness and toughness of the 

amuse the reader. " Where there are flesh may be reduced, as boars are 

good flying dragons, by the art which hunted and bulls are baited before 

they possess, they draw them out of they are killed for eating," Op.Maj, 

their dens, and have bridles and sad- p. 470. 
dies in readiness, and they ride upon ^i Op. Maj. p. 473. 



74 PHILOSOPHY or DISCOVERY. 

if they be furrowed in the surface, as the Irish crys- 
tals are. Let him consider too, that he sees the same 
colours in the drops which are dashed from oars in 
the sunshine; — and in the spray thrown by a mill- 
wheel ; — and in the dew-drops which lie on the grass 
in a meadow on a summer-morning; — and if a man 
takes water in his mouth and projects it on one side 
into a sunbeam ; — and if in an oil-lamp hanging in the 
air, the rays fall in certain positions upon the surface 
of the oil; — and in many other ways, are colours pro- 
duced. We have here a collection of instances, which 
are almost all examples of the same kind as the phe- 
nomenon under consideration; and by the help of a 
principle collected by induction from these facts, the 
colours of the rainbow were afterwards really explained. 

With regard to the form and other circumstances of 
the bow he is sfcill more precise. He bids us measure 
the height of the bow and of the sun, to show that the 
center of the bow is exactly opposite to the sun. He 
explains the circular form of the bow, — its being inde- 
pendent of the form of the cloud, its moving when we 
move, its flying when we follow, — ^by its consisting of 
the reflections from a vast number of minute drops. 
He does not, indeed, trace the course of the rays 
through the drop, or account for the precise magni- 
tude which the bow assumes; but he approaches to 
the verge of this part of the explanation ; and must be 
considered as having given a most happy example of 
experimental inquiry into nature, at a time when such 
examples were exceedingly scanty. In this respect, 
he was more fortunate than Francis Bacon, as we shall 
hereafter see. 

We know but little of the biography of Eoger Bacon, 
but we have every reason to believe that his influence 
upon his age was not great. He was suspected of 
magic, and is said to have been put into close confine- 
ment in consequence of this charge. In his work he 
speaks of Astrology as a science well worth cultivat- 
ing. "But," says he, "Theologians and Decretists, 
not being learned in such matters and seeing that evil 
as well as good may be done, neglect and abhor such 



INNOVATORS OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 75 

things, and reckon them among Magic Arts." "We 
have already seen, that at the very time when Bacon 
was thus raising his voice against the habit of blindly 
following authority, and seeking for all science in 
Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas was employed in fashion- 
ing Aristotle's tenets into that fixed form in wliich 
they became the great impediment to the progress of 
knowledge. It would seem, indeed, that something 
of a struggle between the progressive and stationary 
powers of the human mind was going on at this time. ! 

Bacon himself says^^, "Never was there so great an 
appearance of wisdom, nor so much exercise of study 
in so many Faculties, in so many regions, as for this 
last forty years. Doctors are dispersed everywhere, in 
every castle, in every burgh, and especially by the stu- 
dents of two Orders, (he means the Franciscans and 
Dominicans, who were almost the only religious orders 
that distinguished themselves by an application to 
study ^^,) which has not happened except for about 
forty years. ■ And yet there was never so much igno- 
rance, so much error." And in the part of his work 
which refers to Mathematics, he says of that study^^, 
that it is the door and the key of the sciences; and 
that the neglect of it for thirty or forty years has en- 
tirely ruined the studies of the Latins. According to 
these statements, some change, disastrous to the for- 
tunes of science, must have taken place about 1230, 
soon after the foundation of the Dominican and Fran- 
ciscan Orders ^^ Nor can we doubt that the adoption 

of the Aristotelian philosophy by these two Orders, } | 

in the form in which the Angelical Doctor had sys- 
tematized it, was one of the events which most tended 
to defer, for three centuries, the reform which Boger 
Bacon urged as a matter of crying necessity in his 
own time. 



22 Quoted by Jebb, Pref. to Op. Maj. 23 Mosheim, Hist, iii 161. 

24 Op_ ][^(jj^ p_ jy_ ^ 23 Mosheim, iii. i6i. 



CHAPTER XII. 
The Revival op Platonism. 



m 



I. Causes of Delay in the Advance of Knowledge. — 
In the insight possessed by learned men into the 
method by which truth was to be discovered, the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries went backwards, rather 
than forwards, from the point which had been reached 
in the thirteenth. Roger Bacon had urged them to 
have recourse to experiment; but they returned with 
additional and exclusive zeal to the more favourite 
employment of reasoning upon their own conceptions. 
He had called upon them to look at the world without; 
but their eyes forthwith turned back upon the world 
within. In the constant oscillation of the human 
mind between Ideas and Facts, after having for a 
moment touched the latter, it seemed to swing back 
more impetuously to the former. Not only was the 
philosophy of Aristotle firmly established for a con- 
siderable period, but when men began to question its 
authority, they attempted to set up in its place a phi- 
losophy still more purely ideal, that of Plato. It was 
not till the actual progress of experimental knowledge 
for some centuries had given it a vast accumulation of 
force, that it was able to break its way fully into the 
circle of speculative science. The new Platonist school- 
men had to run theii' course, the practical discoverers 
had to prove their merit by their works, the Italian 
innovators had to utter their aspirations for a change, 
before the second Bacon could truly declare that the 
time for a fundamental reform was at length arrived. 

It cannot but seem strange, to any one who attempts 
to trace the general outline of tlie intellectual progress 
of man, and who considers him as under the guidance 



REVIVAL OF PLATONISM. J J 

of a Providential sway, that he should thus be permit- 
ted to wander so long in a wilderness of intellectual 
darkness; and even to turn back, by a perverse ca- 
price as it might seem, when on the very border of the 
brighter and better land which was his destined in- 
heritance. We do not attempt to solve this difficulty : 
but such a course of things naturally suggests the 
thought, that a progress in physical science is not the 
main object of man's career, in the eyes of the Power 
who directs the fortunes of our race. "We can easily 
conceive that it may have been necessary to man's 
general welfare that he should continue to turn his 
eyes inwards upon his own heart and faculties, till 
Law and Duty, Religion and Government, Faith and 
Hope, had been fully incorporated with all the past 
acquisitions of human intellect; rather than that he 
should have rushed on into a train of discoveries tend- 
ing to chain him to the objects and operations of the 
material world. The systematic Law^ and philoso- 
phical Theology which acquired their ascendancy in 
men's minds at the time of which we speak, kept 
them engaged in a region of speculations which per- 
haps prepared the way for a profounder and wider 
civilization, for a more elevated and spiritual charac- 
ter, than might have been possible without such a 
preparation. The great Italian poet of the fourteenth 
century speaks with strong admiration of the founders 
of the system which prevailed in his time. Thomas, 
Albert, Gratian, Peter Lombard, occupy distinguished 
places in the Paradise. The first, who is the poet's 
instructor, says, — 

lo fui degli agni della santa greggia 
Che Domeiiico mena per cammino 
TJ* ben s'impingua se non si vaneggia. 

Questo che m'fe a destra piu vicino 
Prate e maestro fummi; ed esso Alberto 
E di Cologna, ed io Tomas d'Aquino. . . , 

Quell' altro fiammeggiar esce del riao 



1 Gratian published the Decretals and Civil Law became a regular stnr'.y 
in the twelfth century ; and the Canon in the universities soon afterwards. 



f 



78 PHILOSOPHY OE DISCOVERT. 

De Grazian, che Tuno et I'altro foro 
Ajut6 si Che pi ace in Paradise. 

I, then, was of the lambs that Dominic 
Leads, for his saintly flock, along the way 
Where well they thrive not swoln with vanity. 
He nearest on my right-hand brother was 
And master to me; Albert of Cologne 
Is this; and of Aquinum Thomas, I. . . . 
That next resplendence issues from the smile 
Of Gratian, who to either forum lent 
Such help as favour wins in Paradise. 

It appears probable tbat neither poetry, nor painting, 
nor the other arts which require for their perfection a 
lofty and spiritualized imagination, would have ap- 
peared in the noble and beautiful forms which they 
assumed in the fourteenth and fifteenth century, if 
men of genius had, at the beginning of that period, 
made it their main business to discover the laws of 
nature, and to reduce them to a rigorous scientific 
form. Yet who can doubt that the absence of these 

^1 touching and impressive works would have left one of 

the best and purest parts of man's nature without its 
due nutriment and development ? It may perhaps 
be a necessary condition in the progress of man, that 
the Arts which aim at beauty should reach their ex- 
cellence before the Sciences which seek speculative 
truth; and if this be so, we inherit, from the middle 
ages, treasures which may well reconcile us to the 
delay which took place in their cultivation of experi- 

h.v mental science. 

'"' However this may be, it is our business at present 

to trace the circumstances of this very lingering ad- 
vance. We have already noticed the contest of the 
Nominalists and Kealists, which was one form, though, 
with regard to scientific methods, an unprofitable one, 
of the antithesis of Ideas and Things. Though, there- 
fore, this struggle continued, we need not dwell upon 
it. The Nominalists denied the real existence of Ideas, 
which doctrine was to a great extent implied in the 
prevailing systems ; but the controversy in which they 
thus engaged, did not lead them to seek for knowledge 
in a new field and by new methods. The arguments 



REVIVAL OF PLATONISM. 79 

•wMcli Occam the Nominalist opposes to those of Duns 
Scotus the Realist, are marked with the stamp of the 
same system, and consist only in permutations and 
combinations of the same elementary conceptions. It 
was not till the impulse of external circumstances was 
added to the discontent, which the more stirring in- 
tellects felt towards the barren dogmatism of their 
age, that the activity of the human mind was again 
called into full play, and a new career of progression 
entered upon, till then undreamt of, except by a few 
prophetie spirits. 

2. Caif,ses of Progress. — These cii-cumstances were 
principally the revival of Greek and Roman literature, 
the invention of Printing, the Protestant Peformation, 
and a great number of curious discoveries and inven- 
tions in the arts, which were soon succeeded by im- 
portant steps in speculative physical science. Con- 
nected with the first of these events, was the rise of a 
party of learned men who expressed their dissatisfac- 
tion with the Aristotelian philosophy, as it was then 
taught, and manifested a strong preference for the 
views of Plato. It is by no means suitable to our plan 
to give a detailed account of this new Platonic school; 
but we may notice a few of the writers who belong to 
it, so far at least as to indicate its influence upon the 
Methods of pursuing science. 

In the fourteenth century^, the frequent intercourse 
of the most cultivated persons of the Eastern and 
Western Empire, the increased study of the Greek lan- 
guage in Italy, the intellectual activity of the Italian 
States, the discovery of manuscripts of the classical 
authors, were circumstances which excited or nourished 
a new and zealous study of the works of Greek and 
Roman genius. The genuine writings of the ancients, 
when presented in their native life and beauty, instead 
of being seen only in those lifeless fragments and dull 
transformations which the scholastic system had ex- 
hibited, excited an intense enthusiasm. Europe, at 
that period, might be represented by Plato's beautiful 



2 Tenneman, ix. 4. 



8o PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

allegory, of a man "who, after being long kept in a dark 
cavern, in which his knowledge of the external world 
is gathered from the images which stream through the 
chinks of his prison, is at last led forth into the full 
blaze of day. It was inevitable that such a change 
should animate men's efforts and enlarge their facul- 
ties. Greek literature became more and more known, 
especially by the influence of learned men who came 
from Constantinople into Italy : these teachers, though 
they honoured Aristotle, reverenced Plato no less, and 
had never been accustomed to follow with servile sub- 
mission of thought either these or any other leaders. 
The effect of such influences soon reveals itself in the 
works of that period. Dante has woven into his Divina 
Commedia some of the ideas of Platonism. Petrarch, 
who had formed his mind by the study of Cicero, and 
had thus been inspired with a profound admiration for 
the literature of Greece, learnt Greek from Barlaam, 
a monk who came as ambassador from the Emperor of 
the East to the Pope, in 1339. With this instructor, 
the poet read the works of Plato; struck by their 
beauty, he contributed, by his writings and his con- 
versation, to awake in others an admiration and love 
for that philosopher, which soon became strongly and 
extensively prevalent among the learned in Italy. 

3. Hermolaus Barbarus, c&c. — Along with the feel- 
ing there prevailed also, among those who had learnt 
to relish the genuine beauties of the Greek and Latin 
writers, a strong disgust for the barbarisms in which 
the scholastic philosophy was clothed. Hermolaus Bar- 
barus^, who was born in 1454, at Venice, and had 
formed his taste by the study of classical literature, 
translated, among other learned works, Themistius's 
paraphrastic expositions of the Physics of Aristotle; 
with the view of trying whether the Aristotelian Natu- 
ral Philosophy could not be presented in good Latin, 
which the scholastic teachers denied. In his Preface 
he expresses great indignation against those philoso- 
phers who have written and disputed on philosophical 



' Tenneman, ix. 25. 



REVIVAL OF PLATONISM. 8 1 

subjects in barbarous Latin, and in an uncultured 
style, so that all refined minds are repelled from these 
studies by weariness and disgust. They have, he says, 
by this barbarism, endeavoured to secure to themselves, 
in their own province, a supremacy without rivals or 
opponents. Hence they maintain that mathematics, 
philosophy, jurisprudence, cannot be expounded in cor- 
rect Latin; — that between these sciences and the ge- 
nuine Latin language there is a great gulf, as between 
things that cannot be brought together: and on this 
ground they blame those who combine the study of phi- 
lology and eloquence with that of science. This opinion, 
adds Hermolaus, perverts and ruins our studies ; and is 
highly prejudicial and unworthy in respect to the state. 
Hermolaus awoke in others, as for instance, in John 
Picus of Mirandula, the same dislike to the reigning 
school philosophy. As an opponent of the same kind, 
we may add Marius Nizolius of Bersallo, a scholar who 
carried his admiration of Cicero to an exaggerated ex- 
tent, and who was led, by a controversy with the de- 
fenders of the scholastic philosophy, to publish (1553) 
a work On the True Principles and True Method of 
Philoso2ohizing. In the title of this work, he professes 
to give "the true principles of almost all arts and 
sciences, refuting and rejecting almost all the false 
principles of the Logicians and Metaphysicians." But 
although, in the work, he attacks the scholastic phi- 
losophy, he does little or nothing to justify the large 
pretensions of his title; and he excited, it is said, little 
notice. It is therefore curious that Leibnitz sliould 
have thought it worth his while to re-edit this work, 
which he did in 1670, adding remarks of his own. 

4. Nicolaus Gusanus. — Without dwelling upon 
this opposition to the scholastic system on the ground 
of taste, I shall notice somewhat further those writers 
who put forwards Platonic views, as fitted to complete 
or to replace the doctrines of Aristotle. Among these, 
I may place Nicolaus Cusanus, (so called from Cus, a 
village on the Moselle, where he was born in 1401;) 
who was afterwards raised to the dignity of cardinal. 
"We might, indeed, at first be tempted to include 



85 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

Cusanns among those persons who were led to reject 
the old philosophy by being themselves agents in the 
progressive movement of physical science. For he 
published, before Copernicus, and independently of 
him, the doctrine that the earth is in motion*. But 
it should be recollected that in order to see the possi- 
bility of this doctrine, and its claims to acceptance, 
no new reference to observation was requisite. The 
Heliocentric System was merely a new mode of repre- 
senting to the mind facts, with which all astronomers 
had long been familiar. The system might very easily 
have been embraced and inculcated by Plato himself; 
as indeed it is said to have been actually taught by 
Pythagoras. The mere adoption of the Heliocentric 
view, therefore, without attempting to realize the sys- 
tem in detail, as Copernicus did, cannot entitle a 
writer of the fifteenth century to be looked upon as 
one of the authors of the discoveries of that period; 
and we must consider Cusanus as a speculative anti- 
Aristotelian, rather than as a practical reformer. 

The title of Cusanus's book, De Doctd IgnorantiAj 
shows how far he was from agreeing with those who 
conceived that, in the works of Aristotle, they had 
a full and complete system of all human knowledge. 
At the outset of this book^, he says, after pointing out 
some difficulties in the received philosophy, "If, there- 
fore, the case be so, (as even the very profound Aris- 
totle, in his First Philosophy, affirms,) that in things 
most manifest by nature, there is a difficulty, no less 
than for an owl to look at the sun ; since the apjDetito 
of knowledge is not implanted in us in vain, we ought 
to desire to know that we are ignorant. If we can 
fully attain to this, we shall arrive at Instructed Ig- 
norancer How far he was from placing the source of 
knowledge in experience, as opposed to ideas, we may 
see in the following passage^ from another work of 
his, On Conjectures. "Conjectures must proceed from 



•* "Jam nobis manifestum est terrain istam in veritate moveri," &c.— De 
DodA Ignorantid, lib. ii. c. xiL 

* J)i Doct. Igaor. lib. L c. L ^ De Conjeduris, lib. i. c. iii. iv. 



REYIVAL OF PLATONISM. 83 

our mind, as the real world proceeds from the infinite 
Divine E-eason. For since the human mind, the lofty 
likeness of God, participates, as it may, in the fruitful- 
ness of the creative nature, it doth from itself, as the 
image of the Omnipotent Form, bring forth reasonable 
thoughts which have a similitude to real existences. 
Thus the Human Mind exists as a conjectural form of 
the world, as the Divine Mind is its real form." We 
have here the Platonic or ideal side of knowledge put 
prominently and exclusively forwards. 

5. Marsilius Ficinus, S^^c. — A person who had much 
more influence on the diffusion of Platonism was Mar- 
silius Ficinus, a physician of Florence. In that city 
there prevailed, at the time of which we speak, the 
greatest enthusiasm for Plato. George Gemistius Ple- 
tlio, when in attendance upon the Council of Florence, 
had imparted to many persons the doctrines of the 
Greek philosopher; and, among others, had infused a 
lively interest on this subject into the elder Cosmo, 
the head of the family of the Medici. Cosmo formed 
the plan of founding a Platonic academy. Ficinus', 
well instructed in the works of Plato, Plotinus, Pro- 
clus, and other Platonists, was selected to further this 
object, and was employed in translating the works of 
these authors into Latin. It is not to our present 
purpose to consider the doctrines of this school, except 
so far as they bear upon the nature and methods of 
knowledge; and therefore I must pass by, as I have 
in other instances done, the greater part of their specu- 
lations, which related to the nature of God, the im- 
mortality of the soul, the principles of Goodness and 
Beauty, and other points of the same order. The 
object of these and other Platonists of this school, 
however, was not to expel the authority of Aristotle 
by that of Plato. Many of them had come to the con- 
viction that the highest ends of philosophy were to be 
reached only by bringing into accordance the doctrines 
of Plato and of Aristotle. Of this opinion was John 
Picus, Count of Mirandula and Concordia; and under 



' Born in 1433. 

G 2 



84 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

this persuasion he employed the whole of his life in 
labouring upon a work, De Concordid Platonis et Aris- 
totelis, which was not completed at the time of his 
death, in 1494; and has never been published. But 
about a century later, another writer of the same school, 
Francis Patricius^, pointing out the discrepancies be- 
tween the two Greek teachers, urged the propriety of 
deposing Aristotle from the supremacy he had so long 
enjoyed. "Now all these doctrines, and others not 
a few," he says^, " since they are Platonic doctrines, 
philosophically most true, and consonant with the Catho- 
lic faith, whilst the Aristotelian tenets are contrary 
to the faith, and philosophically false, who will not, 
both as a Christian and a Philosopher, prefer Plato to 
Aristotle 1 And why should not hereafter, in all the 
colleges and monasteries of Europe, the reading and 
study of Plato be introduced 1 Why should not the 
philosophy of Aristotle be forthwith exiled from such 
places ? Why must men continue to drink the mortal 
poison of impiety from that source?" with much more 
in the same strain. 

The Platonic school, of which we have spoken, had, 
however, reached its highest point of prosperity before 
this time, and was already declining. About 1500, 
the Platonists appeared to triumph over the Peripa- 
tetics ^° ; but the death of their great patron. Cardinal 
Bessarion, about this time, and we may add, the hol- 
lowness of their system in many points, and its want 
of fitness for the wants and expectations of the age, 
turned men's thoughts partly back to the established 
Aristotelian doctrines, and partly forwards to schemes 
of bolder and fresher promise. 

6. Francis Patricius. — Patricius, of whom we have 
just spoken, was one of those who had arrived at the 
conviction that the formation of a new philosophy, 
and not merely the restoration of an old one, was 
needed. In 1593, appeared his Nova de Universis 



^ Born 1529, died 1597. 
Aristotdes Exoierlcus, p. 50. i" Tkabosclii, t. viL pt ii. p. 411. 



REVIVAL OF PLATONISM. 85 

Philosophia; and the mode in which it begins" can 
hardly fail to remind us of the expressions which 
Francis Bacon soon afterwards used in the opening of 
a work of the same nature, " Francis Patricius, being 
about to found anew the true philosophy of the uni- 
verse, dared to begin by announcing the following 
indisputable principles." Here, however, the resem- 
blance between Patricius and true inductive philoso- 
phers ends. His principles are barren a priori axioms ; 
and his system has one main element, Light, {Lux, or 
Lumen,) to which all operations of nature are referred. 
In general cultivation, and practical knowledge of 
nature, he was distinguished among Ms contempora- 
ries. In various passages of his works he relates^" ob- 
servations which he had made in the course of his 
travels, in CypiTis, Corfu, Spain, the mountains of the 
Modenese, and Dalmatia, which was his own country; 
his observations relate to light, the saltness of the sea, ^ 

its flux and reflux, and other points of astronomy, ; 

meteorology, and natural histoiy. He speaks of the |^ 

sex of plants ^^j rejects judicial astrology; and notices *S. 

the astronomical systems of Copernicus, Tycho, Fra- 'f 

castoro, and Torre. But the mode in which he speaks 
of experiments proves, what indeed is evident from 
the general scheme of his system, that he had no due 
appreciation of the place which observation must hold 
in real and natural philosophy. 

7. Ficus, Agri2ipa, <&;c. — It had been seen in the '■ 

later philosophical history of Greece, how readily the 
ideas of the Platonic school lead on to a system of 
unfathomable and unbounded mysticism. John Picus, * 

of Mirandula^*, added to the study of Plato and the 



11 "Franciscus Patricius, novamve- Ante primum nihil, 

ramintegramdeiiniversisconditurus Post primum omnia, 

philosophiam.sequentiautiverissima A principio omnia," &c. 

praenuntiare est ausus. Prsenunciata His other works are Panangia, Fan- 

ordine persecutus, divinis oraculis, cosmia, Dissertationes Peripatetics. 

geometricisrationibus, clarissimisque 12 Tiraboschi, t. vii. pt. ii. p. 411. 

experimentis comprobavit. i3 Dissert. Perip. t. iL lib. v, sub fin. 

M Tenneman, ix. 14S. 



86 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

Neoplatonists, a mass of allegorical interpretations of 
the Scriptures, and the dreams of the Cabbala, a Jew- 
ish system ^^, which pretends to explain how all things 
are an emanation of the Deity. To this his nephew, 
Francis Picus, added a reference to inward illumina- 
tion ^^, by which knowledge is obtained, independently 
of the progress of reasoning. John Reuchlin, or Cap- 
nio, born 1455; John Baptist Helmont, born 1577; 
Francis Mercurius Helmont, born 1618, and others, 
succeeded John Picus in his admiration of the Cab- 
bala: while others, as Jacob Bcehmen, rested upon 
internal revelations like Francis Picus. And thus 
we have a series of mystical writers, continued into 
modern times, who may be considered as the successors 
of the Platonic school ; and who all exhibit views alto- 
gether erroneous with regard to the nature and origin 
of knowledge. Among the various dreams of this 
school are certain wide and loose analogies of terres- 
trial and spiritual things. Thus in the writings of 
Cornelius Agrippa (who was born 1487, at Cologne) 
we have such systems as the following^'': — "Since 
there is a threefold world, elemental, celestial, and in- 
tellectual, and each lower one is governed by that 
above it, and receives the influence of its powers : so 
that the very Archetype and Supreme Author trans- 
fuses the virtues of his omnipotence into us through 
angels, heavens, stars, elements, animals, plants, stones, 
— into us, I say, for whose service he has framed and 
created all these things; — the Magi do not think it 
irrational that we should be able to ascend by the 
same degrees, the same worlds, to this Archetype of 
the world, the Author and First Cause of all, of whom 
all things are, and from whom they proceed; and 
should not only avail ourselves of those powers which 
exist in the nobler works of creation, but also should 
be able to attract other powers, and add them to 
these." 

Agrippa's work, De Vanitate Scientiarum, may be 



15 Tenneman, ix. 167. 1^ Ibid. 158. 

1^ Agrippa, De Occult. Phil. lib. i. c. I. 



REVIVAL OF PLATONISM. Sj 

said rather to have a skeptical and cynical, than a 
Platonic, character. It is a declamation^", in a melan- 
choly mood, against the condition of the sciences in 
his time. His indignation at the worldly success of 
men whom he considered inferior to himself, had, he 
says, metamorphosed him into a dog, as the poets 
relate of Hecuba of Troy, so that his impulse was to 
snarl and bark. His professed purpose, however, was 
to expose the dogmatism, the servility, the self-conceit, 
and the neglect of religious truth which prevailed in 
the reigning Schools of philosophy. His views of the 
nature of science, and the modes of improving its cul- 
tivation, are too imperfect and vague to allow us to 
rank him among the reformers of science. 

8. Paracelsus, Fludd, dhc. — The celebrated Para- 
celsus^^ put himself forwards as a reformer in philo- 
sophy, and obtained no small number of adherents. 
He was, in most respects, a shallow and impudent 
pretender; and had small knowledge of the literature 
or science of his time : but by the tone of his speaking 
and writing he manifestly belongs to the mystical 
school of which we are now speaking. Perhaps by 
tlie boldness with which he proposed new systems, 
and by connecting these with the practical doctrines 
of medicine, he contributed something to the intro- 
duction of a new philosophy. We have seen in the 
History of Chemistry that he was the author of the 
system of Three Principles, (salt, sulphur, and mer- 
cury,) which replaced the ancient doctrine of Pour 
Elements, and prepared the way for a true science of 
chemistry. But the salt, sulphur, and mercury of 
Paracelsus were not, he tells his disciples, the visible 
bodies which we call by those names, but certain in- 
visible, astral, or sidereal elements. The astral salt is 
the basis of the solidity and incombustible parts in 
bodies; the astral sulphur is the source of combustion 



38 Written in 1526. called Paracelsus Eremita, born at 

1" Philip Aurelius Theophrastus Einsiedlen in Switzerland, in 1493. 
Bombastus von Hohenheim, also 



88 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

and vegetation; the astral mercury is the origin of 
fluidity and volatility. And again, these three ele- 
ments are analogous to the three elements of man, — 
Body, Spirit, and Soul. 

A writer of our own country, belonging to this 
mystical school, is Robert Fludd, or De Fluctibus, 
who was born in 157 1, in Kent, and after pursuing 
his studies at Oxford, travelled for several years. Of 
all the Theosophists and Mystics, he is by much the 
most learned; and was engaged in various controver- 
sies with Mersenne, Gassendi, Kepler, and others. 
He thus brings us in contact with the next class of 
philosophers whom we have to consider, the practical 
reformers of philosophy; — those who furthered the 
cause of science by making, promulgating, or defend- 
ing the great discoveries which now began to occupy 
men. He adopted the principle, which we have no- 
ticed elsewhere^", of the analogy of the Macrocosm and 
Microcosm, the world of nature and the world of man. 
His system contains such a mixture and confusion of 
physical and metaphysical doctrines as might be ex- 
pected from his ground-plan, and from his school. 
Indeed his object, the general object of mystical specu- 
lators, is to identify physical with spiritual truths. 
Yet the influence of the practical experimental philo- 
sophy which was now gaining ground in the world 
may be traced in him. Thus he refers to experiments 
on distillation to prove the existence and relation of 
the regions of water, air, and fire, and of the spirits 
which correspond to them; and is conceived, by some 
persons ^^, to have anticipated Torricelli in the inven- 
tion of the Barometer. 

We need no further follow the speculations of this 
school. We see already abundant reason why the re- 
form of the methods of pursuing science could not 
proceed from the Platonists. Instead of seeking know- 
ledge by experiment, they immersed themselves deeper 
than even the Aristotelians had done in traditionary 



2" Hist. Sc. Id. b. ix. c. 2. sect. i. Tlie Mystical School of Biology. 
2i Tenneman. ix. 221. 



REVIVAL OF PLATONISM. 89 

lore, or turned their eyes inwards in searcli of an in- 
ternal illumination. Some attempts were made to 
remedy the defects of philosophy by a recourse to the 
doctrines of other sects of antiquity, when men began 
to feel more distinctly the need of a more connected 
and solid knowledge of nature than the established 
system gave them. Among these attempts were those 
of Berigard^^, Magernus, and especially Gassendi, to 
bring into repute the philosophy of the Ionian school, 
of Democritus and of Epicurus. But these endeavours 
were posterior in time to the new impulse given to 
knowledge by Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo, and 
were influenced by views arising out of the success of 
these discoveries, and they must, therefore, be con- 
sidered hereafter. In the mean time, some indepen- 
dent efforts (arising from speculative rather than prac- 
tical reformers) were made to cast off the yoke of the 
Aristotelian dogmatism, and to apprehend the true 
form of that new philosophy which the most active 
and hopeful minds saw to be needed; and we must 
give some account of these attempts, before we can 
commit ourselves to the full stream of progressive 
philosophy. 



22 Tenoeman, ix. 265. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Theoretical Eeformers of Science. 



WE have already seen that Patricius, about the 
middle of the sixteenth century, announced his 
purpose of founding anew the whole fabric of philoso- 
phy ; but that, in executing this plan, he ran into wide 
and baseless hypotheses, suggested by a 'priori concep- 
tions rather than by external observation ; and that he 
was further misled by fanciful analogies resembling 
those which the Platonic mystics loved to contemplate. 
The same time, and the period which followed it, pro- 
duced several other essays which were of the same 
nature, with the exception of their being free from the 
peculiar tendencies of the Platonic school : and these 
insurrections against the authority of the established 
dogmas, although they did not directly substitute a 
better positive system in the place of that which they 
assailed, shook the authority of the Aristotelian sys- 
tem, and led to its overthrow ; which took place as soon 
as these theoretical reformers were aided by practical 
reformers. 

I. Bernardinus Telesius. — Italy, always, in modern 
times, fertile in the beginnings of new systems, was 
the soil on which these innovators arose. The earli- 
est and most conspicuous of them is Bernardinus 
Telesius, who was born in 1508, at Cosenza, in the 
kingdom of Naples. His studies, carried on with 
great zeal and ability, first at Milan and then at 
Rome, made him well acquainted with the knowledge 
of his times: but his own reflections convinced him 
that the basis of science, as then received, was alto- 
gether erroneous; and led him to attempt a reform, 
with which view, in 1565, he published, at Rome, his 



THEORETICAL EEFORMERS OF SCIENCE. 9 1 

"work^ ^^ Bernardinus Telesius, of Cosenza, on the Na- 
ture of Things, according to principles of his oion^ 
In the preface of this work he gives a' short account^ 
of the train of reflection by which he was led to put 
himself in opposition to the Aristotelian philosophy. 
This kind of autobiography occurs not unfrequently 
in the writings of theoretical reformers; and shows 
how livelily they felt the novelty of their undertaking. 
After the storm and sack of Rome in 1527, Telesius 
retired to Padua, as a peaceful seat of the muses; 
and there studied philosophy and mathematics, with 
great zeal, under the direction of Jerome Amalthseus 
and Frederic Delphinus. In these studies he made 
great progress; and the knowledge which he thus 
acquired threw a new light upon his view of the 
Aristotelian philosophy. He undertook a closer ex- 
amination of the Physical Doctrines of Aristotle ; and 
as the result of this, he was astonished how it could 
have been possible that so many excellent men, so 
many nations, and even almost the whole human race, 
should, for so long a time, have allowed themselves to 
be carried away by a blind reverence for a teacher, 
who had committed errors so numerous and grave 
as he perceived to exist in "the philosopher." 
Along with this view of the insufficiency of the Aris- 
totelian philosophy, arose, at an early period, the 
thought of erectiug a better system in its place. With 
this purpose he left Padua, when he had received the 
degree of Doctor, and went to Pome, where he was 
encouraged in his design by the approval and friendly 
exhortations of distinguished men of letters, amongst 
whom were Ubaldino Bandinelli and Giovanni della 
Casa. Prom Pome he went to his native place, when the 
incidents and occupations of a married life for a while 
interrupted his philosophical project. But after his 



1 Bernardini Telefsii Consentini De man : tliis Proem was omitted in sub- 
B.crum Natura jvjcta propria Prin- sequent editions of Telesius, and is 
cipia. not in the one ■which I have consult- 

2 I take this account from Teime- ed. Tenneman, Gesck. d Phil. ix. 28cx 



92 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

wife was dead, and his eldest son grown to manhood, 
he resumed with ardour the scheme of his youth; 
again studied the works of Aristotle and other phi- 
losophers, and composed and published the first two 
books of his treatise. The opening to this work suffi- 
ciently exhibits the spirit in which it was conceived. 
Its object is stated in the title to be to show, that 
"the construction of the world, the magnitude and 
nature of the bodies contained in it, are not to be 
investigated by reasoning, which was done by the 
ancients, but are to be apprehended by the senses, and 
collected from the things themselves." And the Proem 
is in the same strain. " They who before us have in- 
quired concerning the construction of this world and 
of the things which it contains, seem indeed to have 
prosecuted their examination with protracted vigils 
and great labour, but never to have looked at it.^^ And 
thus, he observes, they found nothing but error. 
This he ascribes to their presumption. "For, as it 
were, attempting to rival God in wisdom, and ven- 
turing to seek for the principles and causes of the 
world by the light of theii* own reason, and thinking 
they had found what they had only invented, they 
made an arbitrary world of theii' own." " We then," 
he adds, " not relying on ourselves, and of a duller 
intellect than they, propose to ourselves to turn our 
regards to the world itself and its parts." 

The execution of the work, however, by no means 
corresponds to the announcement. The doctrines of 
Aristotle are indeed attacked; and the objections to 
these, and to other received opinions, form a large part 
of the work. But these objections are supported by 
ct priori reasoning, and not by experiments. And thus, 
rejecting the Aristotelian physics, he proposes a system 
at least equally baseless ; although, no doubt, grateful 
to the author from its sweeping and apparently simple 
character. He assumes three principles, Heat, Cold, 
and Matter : Heat is the principle of motion. Cold of 
immobility, and Matter is the corporeal substratum, in 
which these incorporeal and active principles produce 
their effects. It is easy to imagine that, by combining 



THEORETICAL REFOEMERS OF SCIENCE. 93 

and separating these abstractions in various \^ays, a 
sort of account of many natural phenomena may be 
given ; but it is impossible to ascribe any real value to 
such a system. The merit of Telesius must be con- 
sidered to consist in his rejection of the Aristotelian 
errors, in his perception of the necessity of a reform in 
the method of philosophizing, and in his persuasion that 
this reform must be founded on experiments rather 
than on reasoning. When he said^, "We propose to 
ourselves to turn our eyes to the world itself, and its 
parts, their passions, actions, operations, and species," 
his view of the course to be followed was right; but 
Lis purpose remained but ill fulfilled, by the arbitrary 
edifice of abstract conceptions which his system ex- 
hibits. 

Francis Bacon, who, about half a century later, 
treated the subject of a reform of philosophy in a far 
more penetrating and masterly manner, has given us 
his judgment of Telesius. In his view, he takes 
Telesius as the restorer of the Atomic philosophy, 
which Democritus and Parmenides taught among the 
ancients ; and according to his custom, he presents an 
image of this philosophy in an adaptation of a portion 
of ancient mythology ^ The Celestial Cupid, who with 
Coelus, was the parent of the Gods and of the Uni- 
verse, is exhibited as a representation of matter and 
its properties, according to the Democritean philoso- 
phy. "Concerning Telesius," says Bacon, "we think 
well, and acknowledge him as a lover of truth, a use- 
ful contributor to science, an amender of some tenets, 
the first of recent men. But we have to do with him 
as the restorer of the philosophy of Parmenides, to 
whom much reverence is due." With regard to this 
philosophy, he pronounces a judgment which very 
truly expresses the cause of its rashness and empti- 
ness. "It is," he says, " such a system^ as naturally 



3 Proem. Democriti Philosophia tractata in 

"* "De Principiis atqne Originibus Fabula de Cupidine." 

secundum fabulas Cupidinis et Coeli : ^ " Talia sunt qualia possunt esse 

sive Parmenidis et Telesii et prsecipug ea quae ab intellectu sibi permisso. 



94 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

proceeds frem the intellect, abandoned to its own im- 
pulse, and not rising from experience to theory con- 
tinuously and successively." Accordingly, he says that, 
" Telesius, although learned in the Peripatetic philoso- 
phy (if that were anything), which indeed, he has 
turned against the teachers of it, is hindered by his 
affii-mations, and is more successful in destroying than 
in building." 

The work of Telesius excited no small notice, and 
was placed in the Index Expurgatorius. It made many 
disciples, a consequence probably due to its spirit of 
system-making, no less than to its promise of reform, 
or its acuteness of argument; for till trial and reflec- 
tion have taught man modesty and moderation, he can 
never be content to receive knowledge in the small 
successive instalments in which nature gives it forth 
to him. It is the makers of large systems, arranged 
with an appearance of completeness and symmetry, 
who, principally, give rise to Schools of philosophy. 

2. {Thomas Campanella). — Accordingly, Telesius 
may be looked upon as the founder of a School. His 
most distingTiished successor was Thomas Campanella, 
who was born in 1568, at Stilo, in Calabria. He showed 
great talents at an early age, prosecuting his studies 
at Cosenza, the birth-place of the great opponent of 
Aristotle and reformer of philosophy. He, too, has 
given us an account^ of the course of thought by which 
he was led to become an innovator. "Being afraid 
that not genuine truth, but falsehood in the place of 
truth, was the tenant of the Peripatetic School, I ex- 
amined all the Greek, Latin, and Arabic commen- 
tators of Aristotle, and hesitated more and more, as I 
sought to learn whether what they have said were also 
to be read in the world itself, which I had been taught 
by learned men was the living book of Cod. And as 
my doctors could not satisfy my scruples, I resolved to 
read all the books of Plato, Pliny, Galen, the Stoics, 



nee ab experimentis continenter et ^ Thorn. Campanella de Libris pro- 
gradatim sublevato, profecta viden- priis, as quoted in Tenueman, ix. 
tur." . 291. i 



THEORETICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. 95 

and the Democriteans, and especially those of Telesius ; 
and to compare them with that first and original 
writing^ the world; that thus from the primary auto- 
graph, I might learn if the copies contained anything 
false." Campanella probably refers here to an ex- 
pression of Plato, who says, " the world is God's epistle 
to mankind." And this image, of the natural world 
as an original manuscript, while human systems of 
philosophy are but copies, and may be false ones, 
became a favourite thought of the reformers, and ap- 
pears rejDeatedly in their writings fr^om this time. 
" When I held my public disputation at Cosenza," 
Campanella proceeds, "and still more, when I con- 
versed privately with the brethren of the monastery, 
I found Kttle satisfaction in their answers; but Telesius 
delighted me, on account of his freedom in philoso- 
phizing, and because he rested upon the natui^e of 
things, and not upon the assertions of men." 

With these views and feelings, it is not wonderful 
that Campanella, at the early age of twenty-two (1590,) 
published a work remarkable for the bold promise of 
its title: ^^ Thomas Canipanelld! s Fhilosophy demon- 
strated to tlie senses, against those who have philosoiohized 
in an arbitrary and dogmatical manner, not taking 
nature for their guide; in which tlie errors of Aristotle 
and his followers are refuted from their own assertions 
and the laws of nature: and all tlie imaginations 
feigned in tlie jplace of nature hy the Peripatetics are 
altogether rejected; with a true defence of Bernar din 
Telesius of Cosenza, the greatest of philosophers ; con- 
firmed hy the opinions of tlie ancients, here elucidated 
and defended, especially those of the Platonists^ 

This work was written in answer to a book pub- 
lished against Telesius by a JSTeapolitan professor named 
Marta ; and it was the boast of the young author that 
he had only employed eleven months in the composi- 
tion of his defence, while his adversary had been 
engaged eleven years in preparing his attack. Campa- 
nella found a favourable reception in the house of the 
Marchese Lavelli, and there employed himself in the 
composition of an additional work, entitled On tlie 



96 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

Sense of Things and Magic, and in other literary 
labours. These, however, are full of the indications of 
an enthusiastic temper, inclined to mystical devotion, 
and of opinions bearing the cast of pantheism. For 
instance, the title of the book last quoted sets forth as 
demonstrated in the course of the work, that " the 
world is the living and intelligent statue of God ; and 
that all its parts, and particles of parts, are endowed some 
with a clearer, some with a more obscure sense, such as 
suffices for the preservation of each and of the whole." 
Besides these opinions, which could not fail to make 
him obnoxious to the religious authorities, Campa- 
nella' engaged in schemes of political revolution, which 
involved him in danger and calamity. He took part 
in a conspiracy, of which the object was to cast off the 
tyranny of Spain, and to make Calabria a republic. 
This design was discovered; and Campanella, along 
with others, was thrown into prison and subjected to 
torture. He was kept in confinement twenty-seven 
years ; and at last obtained his liberation by the inter- 
position of Pope Urban YIII. He was, however, still 
in danger from the Neapolitan Inquisition; and escaped 
in disguise to Paris, where he received a pension from 
the king, and lived in intercourse with the most emi- 
nent men of letters. He died there in 1639. 

Campanella was a contemporary of Francis Bacon, 
whom we must consider as belonging to an epoch to 
which the Calabrian school of innovators was only a 
prelude. I shall not therefore further follow the con- 
nexion of writers of this order. Tobias Adami, a Saxon 
writer, an admirer of Campanella's works, employed 
himself, about 1620, in adapting them to the German 
public, and in recommending them strongly to German 
philosophers. Descartes, and even Bacon, may be con- 
sidered as successors of Campanella ; for they too were 
theoretical reformers ; but they enjoyed the advantage 
of the light which had, in the mean time, been thrown 
upon the philosophy of science, by the great practical 
advances of Kepler, Galileo, and others. To these 



" Economisii ItuUani, t. i. p. xxxiii. 



THEORETICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. 97 

practical reformers we must soon turn our attention : 
but we may first notice one or two additional circum- 
stances belonging to our present subject. 

Campanella remarks that both the Peripatetics and 
the Platonists conducted the learner to knowledge bj a 
long and circuitous path, which he wished to shorten 
b}'- setting out from the sense. Without speaking of 
the methods which he proposed, we may notice one 
maxim ^ of considerable value which he propounds, and 
to which we have already been led. "We begin to 
reason from sensible objects, and definition is the end 
and epilogue of science. It is not the beginning of our 
knowing, but only of our teaching." 

3. {Andrew Ccesalpinus.) — The same maxim had al- 
ready been announced by Csesalpinus, a contemporary 
of Telesius; (he was born at Arezzo in 1520, and died 
at Rome in 1603). Csesalpinus is a great name in 
science, though professedly an Aristotelian. It has 
been seen in the History of Science^, that he formed 
the first great epoch of the science of botany by his 
systematic arrangement of plants, and that in this 
task he had no successor for nearly a century. He 
also approached near to the great discovery of the 
circulation of the blood ^°. He takes a view of science 
which includes the remark that we have just quoted 
from Campanella: "We reach perfect knowledge by 
three steps: Induction, Division, Definition. By In- 
duction, we collect likeness and agreement from ob- 
servation ; by Division, we collect unlikeness and dis- 
agreement; by Definition, we learn the proper sub- 
stance of each object. Induction makes universals 
from particulars, and ofiers to the mind all intelligible 
matter; Division discovers the difference of univer- 
sals, and leads to species; Definition resolves species 
into their principles and elements ^\" Without assert- 
ing this to be rigorously correct, it is incomparably 
more true and philosophical than the opposite view, 



8 Tenneman, ix. 305. ' Hist Ind. Sc. b. xvi. c. iiL sect. 2. 

1° Ibid. b. xviL c. iL sect. i. " Qucest. Peripat i. i. 



pS PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

whicli represents definition as the beginning of our 
knowledge ; and the establishment of such a doctrine 
is a material step in inductive philosophy ^^ 

4. (Giordano Bruno.) — Among the Italian innova- 
tors of this time we must notice the unfortunate Gior- 
dano Bruno, who was born at Nola about 1550, and 
burnt at Kome in 1600. He is, however, a reformer of 
a different school from Campanella; for he derives his 
philosophy from Ideas and not from Observation. He 
represents himself as the author of a new doctrine, 
which he terms the Nolan Philosophy. He was a 
zealous promulgator and defender of the Copernican 
system of the universe, as we have noticed in the 
History of Science^^. Campanella also wrote in de- 
fence of that system. 

It is worthy of remark that a thought which is 
often quoted from Francis Bacon, occurs in Bruno's 
Cena di Genere, published in 1584; I mean, the notion 
that the later times are more aged than the earlier. 
In the course of the dialogue, the Pedant, who is one 
of the interlocutors, says, " In antiquity is wisdom ;" 
to which the Philosophical Character replies, " If you 
knew what you were talking about, you would see 
that your principle leads to the opposite result of that 
which you wish to infer; — I mean, that we are older, 
and have lived longer, than our predecessors." He 
then proceeds to apply this, by tracing the course of 
astronomy through the earlier astronomers up to Co- 
pernicus. 

5. (Peter Ramus.) — I will notice one other reformer 
of this period, who attacked the Aristotelian system on 
another side, on which it was considered to be most 
impregnable. This was Peter Ramus, (born in Picardy 
in 1515,) who ventured to denounce the Logic of Aris- 
totle as unphilosophical and useless. After showing 
an extraordinary aptitude for the acquirement of know- 
ledge in his youth, when he proceeded to the degree 
of Master of Arts, he astonished his examiners by 



1* Tenneman, ix. 108. i^ jji^f^ j,^^ g(.^ -^ y g -^ ggg^ 2. 



THEORETICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. 99 

clioosing for the subject of the requisite disputation 
the thesis ^^, "that what Aristotle has said is all 
wrong." This position, so startling in 1535, he de- 
fended for the whole day, without being defeated. 
This was, however, only a formal academical exercise, 
which did not necessarily imply any permanent con- 
viction of the opinion thus expressed. But his mind 
was really labouring to detect and remedy the errors 
which he thus proclaimed. From him, as from the 
other reformers of this time, we have an account of 
this mental struggle ^^ He says, in a work on this 
subject, " I will candidly and simply explain how I 
was delivered from the darkness of Aristotle. When, 
according to the laws of our university, I had spent 
three years and a half in the Aristotelian philosophy, 
and was now invested with the })hilosophical laurel as 
a Master of Arts, I took an account of the time which 
I had consumed in this study, and considered on what 
subjects I should employ this logical art of Aristotle, 
which I had learnt with so much labour and noise, 
I found it made me not more versed in history or an- 
tiquities, more eloquent in discourse, more ready in 
verse, more wise in any subject. Alas for me! how 
was I overpowered, how deeply did I groan, how did 
I deplore my lot and my nature, how did I deem 
myself to be by some unhappy and dismal fate and 
frame of mind abhorrent from the Muses, when I 
found that I was one who, after all my pains, could 
reap no benefit from that wisdom of which I heard so 
much, as being contained in the Logic of Aristotle." 
He then relates that he was led to the study of the 
Dialogues of Plato, and was delighted with the kind 
of analysis of the subjects discussed which Socrates is 
there represented as executing. "Well," he adds, "I 
began thus to reflect within myself — (I should have 
thought it impious to say it to another) — ^What, I 



H Tenneman, ix. 420. " Qusecunque ab Aristotele dicta essent commenticia 
esse." Freigius. Vita Petri Rami, p. 10. 

15 Rami, Animadv. Aristot. L iv. 

H 2 



100 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

pray you, prevents me from socratizing ; and from ask- 
ing, without regard to Aristotle's authority, whether 
Aristotle's Logic be true and correct? It may be that 
that philosopher leads us wrong ; and if so, no wonder 
that I cannot find in his books the treasure which is 
not there. What if his dogmas be mere figments? Do 
I not tease and torment myself in vain, trying to get 
a harvest from a barren soil?" He convinced himself 
that the Aristotelian logic was worthless: and con- 
structed a new system of Logic, founded mainly on the 
Platonic process of exhausting a subject by analytical 
classification of its parts. Both works, his Animad- 
versio7is on Aristotle, and his Logic, appeared in 1543. 
The learned world was startled and shocked to find a 
young man, on his first entrance into life, condemning 
as fiiulty, fallacious, and useless, that part of Aris- 
totle's works which had always hitherto been held as 
a masterpiece of philosophical acuteness, and as the 
Organon of scientific reasoning. And in tinith, it 
must be granted that Ramus does not appear to have 
understood the real nature and object of Aristotle's 
Logic; while his own system could not supply the 
place of the old one, and was not of much real value. 
This dissent from the established doctrines was, how- 
ever, not only condemned but punished. The printing 
and selling of his books was forbidden through France ; 
and Ramus was stigmatized by a sentence ^^ which 
declared him rash, arrogant, impudent, and ignorant, 
and prohibited from teaching logic and philosophy. 
He was, however, afterwards restored to the office of 
professor : and though much attacked, persisted in his 
plan of reforming, not only Logic but Physics and 
Metaphysics. He made his position still more dan- 
gerous by adopting the reformed religion ; and during 
the unhapp}'- civil wars of France, he was deprived of 
his professorship, driven from Paris, and had his 
library plundered. He endeavoured, but in vain, to 
engage a German professor, Scliegk, to undertake the 



'^ See Hist. Ind. Sc. b. iv. a iv. sect. 4. 



THEORETICAL REFOHMERS OF SCIEJs^CE. lOI 

reform of the Aristotelian Physics ; a portion of know- 
ledge in which he felt himself not to be strong. Un- 
happily for himself, he afterwards returned to Paris, 
where he perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew 
in 1572. 

R-amus's main objection to the Aristotelian Logic 
is, that it is not the image of the natural process of 
thought; an objection which shows little philosophical 
insight ; for the course by which we obtain knoAvledge 
may well differ from the order in which our know- 
ledge, when obtained, is exhibited. We have already 
seen that Ramus's contemporaries, CEesalpinus and 
Campanella, had a wiser view; placing definition as 
the last step in knowing, but the first in teaching. 
But the effect which Ramus produced was by no 
means slight. He aided powerfully in turning the 
minds of men to question the authority of Aristotle 
on all points; and had many followers, especially 
among the Protestants. Among the rest, Milton, our 
great poet, published "Artis Logic?e plenior Institu- 
tio ad Petri Rami metlwdum concinnataf^ but this 
work, appearing in 1672, belongs to a succeeding 
period. 

6. [The Reformers in general). — It is impossible not to 
be struck with the series of misfortunes which assailed 
the reformers of philosophy of the j)eriod we have had 
to review. Roger Bacon was repeatedly condemned 
and imprisoned ; and, not to speak of others who suf- 
fered under the imputation of magical arts, Telesius is 
said^^ to have been driven from Naples to his native 
city by calumny and envy; Caesalpinus was accused 
of atheism ^^; Campanella was imprisoned for twenty- 
seven years and tortured; Giordano Bruno was burnt 
at Rome as a heretic; Ramus was persecuted during 
his life, and finally murdered by his personal enemy 
Jacques Charpentier, in a massacre of which the plea 
v/as religion. It is true, that for the most part these 
misfortuues were not principally due to the attempts 



'7 Tenneman, ix. 230. ^^ Ibid. io8» 



102 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

at philosopMcal reform, but were connected rather 
with politics or religion. But we cannot doubt that 
the spirit which led men to assail the received philo- 
sophy, might readily incline them to reject some tenets 
of the established religion; since the boundary line of 
these subjects is difficult to draw. And as we have 
seen, there was in most of the persons of whom we 
have spoken, not only a well-founded persuasion of 
the defects of existing systems, but an eager spirit of 
change, and a sanguine anticipation of some wide and 
lofty philosophy, which was soon to elevate the minds 
and conditions of men. The most unfortunate were, 
for the most part, the least temperate and judicious 
reformers. Patricius, who, as we have seen, declared 
himself against the Aristotelian philosophy, lived and 
died at Kome in peace and honour ^^ 

7. {Melancthon.) — It is not easy to point out with 
precision the connexion between the efforts at a Reform 
in Philosophy, and the great Keformation of Religion 
in the sixteenth century. The disposition to assert 
(practically at least) a freedom of thinking, and to 
reject the corruptions which tradition had introduced 
and authority maintained, naturally extended its in- 
fluence from one subject to another; and especially in 
subjects so nearly connected as theology and philoso- 
phy. The Protestants, however, did not reject the 
Aristotelian system; they only reformed it, by going 
back to the original works of the author, and by re- 
ducing it to a conformity with Scripture. In this 
reform, Melancthon was the chief author, and Avrote 
works on Logic, Physics, Morals, and Metaphysics, 
which were used among Protestants. On the subject 
of the origin of our knowledge, his views contained a 
very philosophical improvement of the Aristotelian 
doctrines. He recognized the importance of Ideas, as 
Avell as of Experience. "We could not," he says'", 
" proceed to reason at all, except there were by nature 



19 Tenneman, ix, 246. 
20 Melancthon, De Anima, p. 207, quoted in Tenneman, Lx. 121. 



THEORETICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. IO3 

innate in man certain fixed points, that is, principles 
of science; — as Number, the recognition of Order and 
Proportion, logical, geometrical, physical and moral 
Principles. Physical principles are snch as these, — 
everything which exists proceeds from a cause, — a 
body cannot be in two places at once, — time is a con- 
tinued series of things or of motions, — and the like," 
It is not difficult to see that such Principles partake 
of the nature of the Fundamental Ideas which we 
have attempted to arrange and enumerate in a pre- 
vious part of this work. 

Before we proceed to the next chapter, which treats 
of the Practical Keformers of Scientific Method, let 
us for an instant look at the strong persuasion implied 
in the titles of the works of this period, that the 
time of a philosophical revolution was at hand. Tele- 
sius published De Eerum Natura juxta propria j)rin- 
cipia; Francis Helmont, Philosophia vulgaris refu- 
tata; Patricius, Nova de Universis Philosophia; Cs-m- 
panella, Philosophia sensihus demonstrata^ adversus 
err ores Aristotelis; Bruno professed himself the author 
of a Nolan Philosophy ; and Bamus of a New Logic. 
The age announced itself pregnant; and the eyes of 
all who took an interest in the intellectual fortunes of 
the race, were looking eagerly for the expected ofl"- 
spring. 



CHAPTER Xiy. 

The Practical Eeformeks of Science. 



T. Character of the Practical Reformers. — We now 
come to a class of speculators who had perhaps a 
greater share in bringing about the change from sta- 
tionary to progressive knowledge, than those writers 
who so loudly announced the revolution. The mode 
in which the philosophers of whom we now speak 
produced their impressions on men's minds, was very 
different from the procedure of the theoretical re- 
formers. What these talked of, they did ; what these 
promised, they performed. While the theorists con- 
cerning knowledge proclaimed that great advances 
were to be made, the practical discoverers went stead- 
ily forwards. While one class spoke of a complete 
Reform of scientific Methods, the other, boasting little, 
and often thinking little of Method, proved the novelty 
of their instrument by obtaining new results. While 
the metaphysicians were exhorting men to consult ex- 
perience and the senses, the physicists were examining 
nature by such means with unjDaralleled success. And 
while the former, even when they did for a moment 
refer to facts, soon rushed back into their own region 
of ideas, and tried at once to seize the widest generali- 
zations, the latter, fastening their attention upon the 
plienomena, and trying to reduce them to laws, were 
carried forwards by steps measured and gradual, such 
as no conjectural view of scientific method had sug- 
gested; but leading to truths as profound and com- 
prehensive as any which conjecture had dared to 
anticipate. The theoretical reformers were bold, self- 
confident, hasty, contemptuous of antiquity, ambitious 
of ruling all future speculations, as they whom they 



PRACTICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. I05 

sought to depose had ruled the past. The practical 
reformers were cautious, modest, slow, despising no 
knowledge, whether borrowed from tradition or obser- 
vation, confident in the ultimate triumph of science, 
but impressed with the conviction that each single 
person could contribute a little only to its progress. 
Yet though thus working rather than speculating, — 
dealing with particulars more than with generals, — 
employed mainly in adding to knowledge, and not in 
defining what knowledge is, or how additions are to 
be made to it, — these men, thoughtful, curious, and of 
comprehensive minds, were constantly led to important 
views on the nature and methods of science. And 
these views, thus suggested by reflections on their own 
mental activity, were gradually incorporated with the 
more abstract doctrines of the metaphysicians, and 
had a most important influence in establishing an im- 
proved philosophy of science. The indications of such 
views we must now endeavour to collect from the 
writings of the discoverers of the times preceding the 
seventeenth century. 

Some of the earliest of these indications are to be 
found in those who dealt with Art rather than with 
Science. I have already endeavoured to show that the 
advance of the arts which give us a command over the 
powers of nature, is generally prior to the formation 
of exact and speculative knowledge concerning those 
powers. But Art, which is thus the predecessor of 
Science, is, among nations of acute and active intellects, 
usually its parent. There operates, in such a case, a 
speculative spirit, leading men to seek for the reasons 
of that which they find themselves able to do. How 
slowly, and with what repeated deviations men follow 
this leading, when under the influence of a partial and 
dogmatical philosophy^ the late birth and slow growth 
of sound physical theory shows. But at the period of 
which we now speak, we find men, at length, proceed- 
ing in obedience to the impulse which thus drives them 
from practice to theory ; — from an acquaintance with 
phenomena to a free and intelligent inquiry concerning 
their causes. 



I06 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

2. Leonardo da Vinci. — I have already noted, in 
the History of Science, that the Indistinctness of Ideas, 
which was long one main impediment to the progress 
of science in the middle ages, was first remedied among 
architects and engineers. These men, so far at least as 
mechanical ideas were concerned, were compelled by 
their employments to judge rightly of the relations and 
properties of the materials with which they had to deal ; 
and would have been chastised by the failure of their 
works, if they had violated the laws of mechanical truth. 
It was not wonderful, therefore, that these laws became 
known to them first. We have seen, in the History, 
that Leonardo da Yinci, the celebrated painter, who 
Avas also an engineer, is the first writer in whom we 
find the true view of the laws of equilibrium of the 
lever in the most general case. This artist, a man of 
a lively and discursive mind, is led to make some re- 
marks ^ on the formation of our knowledge, which may 
show the opinions on that subject that already ofiered 
themselves at the beginning of the sixteenth centuiy^ 
He expresses himself as follows : — "Theory is the gene- 
ral. Experiments are the soldiers. The interpreter of 
the artifices of nature is Experience : she is never de- 
ceived. Our judgment sometimes is deceived, because 
it expects effects which Experience refuses to allow." 
And again, "We must consult Experience, and vary 
the circumstances till we have drawn from them gene- 
ral rules; for it is she who furnishes true rules. But 
of what use, you ask, are these rules ; I reply, that 
they direct us in the researches of nature and the 
operations of art. They prevent our imposing upon 
ourselves and others by promising ourselves results 
which we cannot obtain. 

" In the study of the sciences which depend on mathe- 
matics, those who do not consult nature but authors, 
are not the children of nature, they are only her grand- 



1 His works have never been pub- Essai sur les Ouvrages de Leonard da 

lished, and exist in manuscript in the Vinci. Paris, 1797. 

library of the Institute at Paris. Some * Leonardo died in 1520, at the age 

extracts were published by Venturi, of 78. 



PRACTICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. 10/ 

claildren. She is the true teacher of men of genius. 
But see the absurdity of men ^ They turn up their 
noses at a man who prefers to learn from nature her- 
self rather than from authors who are only her clerks." 

In another place, in reference to a particular case, 
he says, "I^ature begins from the Keason and ends in 
Experience ; but for all that, we must take the opposite 
course ; begin from the Experiment and try to discover 
the Keason." 

Leonardo was born forty-six years before Telesius; 
yet we have here an estimate of the value of experience 
far more just aud substantial than the Calabrian school 
ever reached. The expressions contained in the above 
extracts, are well worthy our notice; — that experience 
is never deceived; — that we must vary our experi- 
ments, and draw from them general rules ; — ^that na- 
ture is the original source of knowledge, and books 
only a derivative substitute; — with a lively image of 
the sons and grandsons of nature. Some of these 
assertions have been deemed, and not without reason, 
very similar to those made by Bacon a century later. 
Yet it is probable that the import of such expressions, 
in Leonardo's mind, was less clear and definite than 
that which they acquired by the progress of sound phi- 
losophy. When he says that theory is the general 
and experiments the soldiers, he probably meant that 
theory directs men what experiments to make; and 
had not in his mind the notion of a theoretical Idea 
ordering and brigading the Facts. When he says that 
Experience is the interpreter of Nature, we may recol- 
lect, that in a more correct use of this image. Expe- 
rience and Nature are the writing, and the Intellect 
of man the interpreter. We may add, that the clear 
apprehension of the importance of Experience led, in 
this as in other cases, to an unjust depreciation of the 
value of what science owed to books. Leonardo would 
have made little progress, if he had attempted to master 
a complex science, astronomy for instance, by means of 
observation alone, without the aid of books. 

But in spite of such criticism, Leonardo's maxims 
show extraordinary sagacity and insight; and they 



m 



1 08 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

appear to us the more remarkable, when we see how 
rare such views are for a century after his time. 

3. Copernicus. — For we by no means find, even in 
those practical discoverers to whom, in reality, the re- 
volution in science, and consequently in the philosophy 
of science, was due, this prompt and vigorous recognition 
of the supreme authority of observation as a ground of 
belief; this bold estimate of the probable worthlessness 
of traditional knowledge; and this plain assertion of 
the reality of theory founded upon experience. Among 
such discoverers, Copernicus must ever hold a most 
distinguished place. The heliocentric theory of the 
universe, established by him with vast labour and 
deep knowledge, was, for the succeeding century, the 
field of discipline and exertion of all the most active 
speculative minds. Men, during that time, proved 
their freedom of thought, their hopeful spirit, and 
their comprehensive view, by adopting, inculcating, 
and following out the philosophy which this theory 
suggested. But in the first promulgation of the theory, 
in the works of Copernicus himself, we find a far 
more cautious and reserved temper. He does not, 
indeed, give up the reality of his theory, but he ex- 
presses himself so as to avoid shocking those who might 
(as some afterwards did) think it safe to speak of it as 
an hypothesis rather than a truth. In his preface ad- 
dressed to the Pope^, after speaking of the difficulties 
in the old and received doctrines, by which he was led 
to his own theory, he says, " Hence I began to think 
of the mobility of the earth; and although the opinion 
seemed absurd, yet because I knew that to others be- 
fore me this liberty had been conceded, of imagining 
any kinds of circles in order to explain the phenomena 
of the stars, I thought it would also be readily granted 
me, that I might try whether, by supposing the earth 
to be in motion, I might not arrive at a better expla- 
nation than theirs, of the revolutions of the celestial 
orbs." Nor does he anywhere assert that the seeming 



3 Paul III. in 1543. 



PRACTICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. IO9 

absurdity had become a certain truth, or betray any 
feeling of triumph over the mistaken belief of his 
predecessors. And, as I have elsewhere shown, his 
disciples'' indignantly and justly defended him from 
the charge of disrespect towards Ptolemy and other 
ancient astronomers. Yet Copernicus is far from com- 
promising the value or evidence of the great truths 
which he introduced to general acceptance ; and from 
sinking in his exposition of his discoveries below the 
temper which had led to them. His quotation from 
Ptolemy, that " He who is to follow philosophy must 
be a freeman in mind," is a grand and noble maxim, 
which it well became him to utter. 

4. Fabricius. — In another of the great discoverers 
of this period, though employed on a very different sub- 
ject, we discern much of the same temper. Fabricius 
of Acquapendente^, the tutor and forerunner of our 
Harvey, and one of that illustrious series of Paduan 
professors who were the fathers of anatomy '', exhibits 
something of the same respect for antiquity, in the 
midst of his original speculations. Thus in a disser- 
tation^ On the Action of the Joints, he quotes Aris- 
totle's Mechanical Problems to prove that in all ani- 
mal motion there must be some quiescent fulcrum ; 
and finds merit even in Aristotle's ignorance. "Aris- 
totle," he says^, "did not know that motion was 
produced by the muscle; and after staggering about 
from one supposition to another, at last is compelled 
by the facts themselves to recur to an innate spirit, 
which, he conceives, is contrasted, and which pulls 
and pushes. And here we cannot help admiring the 
genius of Aristotle, who, though ignorant of the mus- 
cle, invents something which produces nearly the same 
effect as the muscle, namely, contraction and pulling." 
He then, with great acuteness, points out the dis- 
tinction between Aristotle's opinions, thus favourably 
interpreted, and those of Galen. In all this, we see 



■• Hist. Ind. Sc. b. v. c. iL s Born 1537, died 1619. 

' Hist Ind. Sc. b. xvii. c. iL sect. i. 
' Fabricius, De Motu Locali, p. 182. 8 p. igg. 



no PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

something of the wish to find all truths in the writings 
of the ancients, but nothing which materially inter- 
feres with freedom of inquiry. The anatomists have 
in all ages and countries been practically employed in 
seeking knowledge from observation. Facts have ever 
been to them a subject of careful and profitable study; 
while the ideas which enter into the wider truths of 
the science, are, as we have seen, even still involved 
in obscurity, doubt, and contest. 

5. Maurolycus. — Francis Maurolycus of Messana, 
whose mathematical works were published in 1575, was 
one of the great improvers of the science of optics in his 
time. In his Preface to his Treatise on the Spheres, 
he speaks of previous writers on the same subject; and 
observes that as they have not superseded one another, 
they have not rendered it unfit for any one to treat 
the subject afresh. "Yet," he says, "it is impossible 
to amend the errors of all who have preceded us. 
This would be a task too hard for Atlas, although he 
supports the heavens. Even Copernicus is tolerated, 
who makes the sun to be fijced, and the earth to move 
round it in a circle, and who is more worthy of a 
whip or a scourge than of a refutation." The mathe- 
maticians and astronomers of that time were not the 
persons most sensible of the progress of physical know- 
ledge; for the basis of their science, and a great part 
of its substance, were contained in the wiitings of the 
ancients; and till the time of Kepler, Ptolemy's work 
was, very justly, looked upon as including all that was 
essential in the science. 

6. Benedetti. — But the writers on Mechanics were 
naturally led to present themselves as innovators and 
experimenters; for all that the ancients had taught 
concerning the doctrine of motion was erroneous; 
while those who sought their knowledge from experi- 
ment, were constantly led to new truths. John Bap- 
tist Benedetti, a Venetian nobleman, in 1599, pub- 
lished his Speculationum Liber, containing, among other 
matter, a treatise on Mechanics, in which several of 
the Aristotelian errors were refuted. In the Preface 
to this Treatise, he says, " Many authors have written 



PRACTICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. Ill 

much, and with great ability, on Mechanics; but since 
nature is constantly bringing to light something either 
new, or before unnoticed, I too wished to put forth a 
few things hitherto unattempted, or not sufficiently 
ex[)lained." In the doctrine of motion he distinctly 
and at some length condemns and argues against all 
the Aristotelian doctrines concerning motion, weight, 
and many other fundamental j)rinciples of physics. 
Benedetti is also an adherent of the Copernican doc- 
trine. He states^ the enormous velocity which the 
heavenly bodies must have, if the earth be the centre 
of their motions; and adds, " which difficulty does not 
occur according to the beautiful theory of the Samian 
Aristarchus, expounded in a divine manner by Is'icolas 
Copernicus ; against which the reasons alleged by Aris- 
totle are of no weight." Benedetti throughout shows 
no want of the courage or ability which were needed 
in order to rise in opposition against the dogmas of 
the Peripatetics. He does not, however, refer to ex- 
periment in a very direct manner ; indeed most of the 
facts on which the elementary truths of mechanics 
rest, were known and admitted by the Aristotelians; 
and therefore could not be adduced as novelties. On 
the contrary, he begins with a priori maxims, which 
experience would not have confirmed. "Since," he 
says^", "we have undertaken the task of proving that 
Aristotle is wrong in his opinions concerning motion, 
there are certain absolute truths, the objects of the 
intellect known of themselves, which we must lay 
down in the fii'st place." And then, as an example of 
these truths, he states this : " Any two bodies of equal 
size and figure, but of difi'erent materials, will have 
their natural velocities in the same proportion as their 
weights ;" where by their natural velocities, he means 
the velocities with which they naturally fall down- 
wards. 

7. Gilbert. — The greatest of these practical reform- 
ers of science is our countryman, William Gilbert; if, 



9 SpecukUionum Liber, p. 195. 'o Ibid. p. 169. 



112 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

indeed, in virtue of the clear views of the prospects 
which were then opening to science, and of the 
methods by which her future progress was to be se- 
cured, while he exemplified those views by physical 
discoveries, he does not rather deserve the still higher 
praise of being at the same time a theoretical and a 
practical reformer. Gilbert's physical researches and 
speculations were employed principally upon subjects 
on wliich the ancients had known little or nothing; 
and on which therefore it could not be doubtful whe- 
ther tradition or observation was the source of know- 
ledge. Such was magnetism; for the ancients were 
barely acquainted with the attractive property of the 
magnet. Its polarity, including repulsion as well as 
attraction, its direction towards the north, its limited 
variation from this direction, its declination from the 
horizontal position, were all modern discoveries. G-il- 
bert's work^^ on the magnet and on the magnetism of 
the earth, appeared in 1600; and in this, he repeatedly 
maintains the superiority of experimental knowledge 
over the physical philosophy of the ancieots. His 
preface opens thus : " Since in making discoveries and 
searching out the hidden causes of things, stronger 
reasons are obtained from trustworthy experiments 
and demonstrable arguments, than from probable con- 
jectures and the dogmas of those who philosophize in 
the usual manner," he has, he says, " endeavoured to 
proceed from common magnetical experiments to the 
inward constitution of the earth." As I have stated 
in the History of Magnetism ^^, Gilbert's work con- 
tains all the fundamental facts of that science, so fully 
stated, that we have, at this day, little to add to them. 
He is not, however, by the advance which he thus 
made, led to depreciate the ancients, but only to claim 
for himself the same liberty of philosophizing which 



" Gulielmi Gilbert!, Colccstriensis, Medici Londinensis, De Magnete, Mag- 
netidsque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure, Physiologia Nova, plurU 
mis et Argnmentis et Experimcntis demonstrata. 

12 Hist. Ind. Sc. h. xii. c. L 



PRACTICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. II 3 

tLey had enjoyed ^^. '' To those ancient and first parents 
of philosophy, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Ptolemy, Hip- 
pocrates, Galen, be all due honour; from them it was 
that the stream of wisdom has been derived down to 
posterity. But our age has discovered and brought 
to light many things which they, if they were yet 
alive, would gladly embrace. Wherefore we also shall 
not hesitate to expound, by probable hypotheses, those 
things which by long experience we have ascertained." 
In this work the author not only adopts the Coper- 
nican doctrine of the earth's motion, but speaks^* of 
the contrary supposition as utterly absurd, founding 
his argument mainly on the vast velocities which such 
a supposition requires us to ascribe to the celestial 
bodies. Dr. Gilbert was physician to Queen Elizabeth 
and to James the First, and died in] [603. Some time 
after his death the executors of his brother published 
another work of his, De Mundo nostro Suhlunari Phi- 
losophia Nova, in which similar views are still more 
comprehensively presented. In this he says, " The 
two lords of philosophy, Aristotle and Galen, are held 
in Avorship like gods, and rule the schools; — the for- 
mer by some destiny obtained a sway and influence 
among philosophers, like that of his pupil Alexander 
among the kings of the earth ; — Galen, with like suc- 
cess, holds his triumph among the physicians of Eu- 
rope." This comparison of Aristotle to Alexander 
was also taken hold of by Bacon. Nor is Gilbert an 
unworthy precursor of Bacon in the view he gives of 
the History of Science, which occupies the first three 
chapters of his Philosophy. He traces this history 
from "the simplicity and ignorance of the ancients," 
through " the fabrication of the fable of the four ele- 
ments," to Aristotle and Galen. He mentions with 
due disapproval the host of commentators which suc- 
ceeded, the alchemists, the "shipwreck of science in 
the deluge of the Goths," and the revival of letters 
and genius in the time of " our grandfathers." " This 



\^ 



^3 Pref. 14 2)e Magnete, lib. vi. c. 3, 4. 



114 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

later age," lie says, " has exploded the Barbarians, and 
restored the Greeks and Latins to their pristine grace 
and honour. It remains, that if they have wi'itten 
aught in error, this should be remedied by better and 
more productive processes {frugiferis institutis), not 
to be contemned for their novelty ; (for nothing which 
is true is really new, but is perfect from eternity, 
though to weak man it may be unknown;) and that 
thus Philosophy may bear her fruit." The reader of 
Bacon will not fail to recognize, in these references to 
" fruit-bearing" knowledge, a similarity of expression 
with the Novum Organon. 

Bacon does not appear to me to have done justice to 
his contemporary. He nowhere recognizes in the la- 
bours of Gilbert a community of purpose and spirit 
with his own. On the other hand, he casts upon him 
a reflection which he by no means deserves. In the 
Advancement of Learning ^^, he says, " Another error 
is, that men have used to infect their meditations, 
opinions, and doctrines, with some conceits which they 
have most admired, or some sciences to which they 
have most applied; and given all things else a tinc- 
ture according to them, utterly untrue and improper... 
So have the alchemists made a philosophy out of a 
few experiments of the furnace; and Gilbertus, our 
countryman, hath made a philosophy out of the ob- 
servations of a loadstone," (in the Latin, philosophiam 
etiam e magnete elicuit). And in the same manner 
he mentions him in the Novum Oi'ganon^^, as afibrd- 
ing an example of an empirical kind of philosophy, 
which appears to those daily conversant with the ex- 
periments, probable, but to other persons incredible 
and empty. But instead of blaming Gilbert for dis- 
turbing and narrowing science by a too constant re- 
ference to magnetical rules, we might rather censure 
Bacon, for not seeing how important in all natural 
philosophy are those laws of attraction and repulsion 
of which magnetical phenomena are the most obvious 



" Nov. Org. b, i '6 B. L Aph. 64. 



PRACTICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. II5 

illustration. We may find ground for such a judg- 
ment in another passage in which Bacon speaks of 
Gilbert. In the Second Book^' of the Novum Orga- 
non, having classified motions, he gives, as one kind, 
what he calls, in his figurative language, motion for 
gain, or motion of need, by which a body shuns hete- 
rogeneous, and seeks cognate bodies. And he adds, 
"The Electrical operation, concerning which Gilbert 
and others since him have made up such a wonderful 
story, is nothing less than the appetite of a body, 
which, excited by friction, does not well tolerate the 
air, and prefers another tangible body if it be found 
near." Bacon's notion of an appetite in the body is 
certainly much less philosophical than Gilbert's, who 
speaks of light bodies as drawn towards amber by 
certain material radii ^^j and we might perhaps ven- 
ture to say that Bacon here manifests a want of clear 
mechanical ideas. Bacon, too, showed his inferior 
aptitude for physical research in rejecting the Coper- 
nican doctrine which Gilbert adopted. In the Ad- 
vancement of Learning^^, suggesting a history of the 
opinions of philosophers, he says that he would have 
inserted in it even recent theories, as those of Para- 
celsus; of Telesius, who restored the philosophy of 
Parmenides; or Patricius, who resublimed the fumes 
of Platonism ; or Gilbert, who brought back the dog- 
mas of Philolaus. But Bacon quotes^" with pleasure 
Gilbert's ridicule of the Peripatetics' definition of 
heat. They had said, that heat is that which sepa- 
rates heterogeneous and unites homogeneous matter; 
w^hich, said Gilbert, is as if any one were to define 
Tnan as that which sows wheat and plants vines. 

GaKleo, another of Gilbert's distinguished contem- 
poraries, had a higher opinion of him. He says^^, "I 
extremely admire and envy this author. I think him 
worthy of the greatest praise for the many new and 
true observations which he has made, to the disgrace 



17 VoL ix. 185. 18 Be Magnete, p. 60. 

19 B. iii. c. 4. 20 Nov. Org. b. ii. Aph. 48. 

21 Drinkwater's Life of Galileo, p. 18. 

I 2 



Il6 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

of so many vain and fabling authors ; who wi'ite, not 
from their own knowledge only, but repeat everything 
they hear from the foolish and vulgar, without at- 
tempting to satisfy themselves of the same by experi- 
ence ; perhaps that they may not diminish the size of 
their books." 

8. Galileo. — Galileo was content with the active and 
successful practice of experimental inquiry; and did 
not demand that such researches should be made ex- 
pressly subservient to that wider and more ambitious 
philosophy, on which the author of the Novum Organon 
employed his powers. But still it now becomes our 
business to trace those portions of Galileo's views which 
have reference to the theory, as well as the practice, 
of scientific investigation. On this subject, Galileo did 
not think more profoundly, perhaps, than several of his 
contemporaries ; but in the liveliness of expression and 
illustration with which he recommended his opinions 
on such topics, he was unrivalled. Writing in the lan- 
guage of the people, in the attractive form of dialogue, 
with clearness, grace, and wit, he did far more than 
any of his predecessors had done to render the new 
methods, results, and prospects of science familiar to a 
wide circle of readers, first in Italy, and soon, all over 
Europe. The principal points inculcated by him were 
already becoming familiar to men of active and inquir- 
ing minds; such as, — that knowledge was to be sought 
from observation, and not froifi books; — that it was 
absurd to adhere to, and debate about, the physical 
tenets of Aristotle and the rest of the ancients. On 
persons who followed this latter course, Galileo fixed 
the epithet of Paper Philosophers^^; because, as he 
wrote in a letter to Kepler, this sort of men fancied 
that philosophy was to be studied like the JEneid or 
Odyssee, and that the true reading of nature was to be 
detected by the collation of texts. Nothing so much 
shook the authority of the received system of Physics 
as the experimental discoveries, directly contradicting 



^2 Life of Galileo, p. 9. 



PRACTICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. II 7 

it, which Galileo made. By experiment, as I have 
elsewhere stated ^^, he disproved the Aristotelian doc- 
trine that bodies fall quickly or slowly in proportion 
to their weight. And when he had invented the tele- 
scope, a number of new discoveries of the most striking 
kind (the inequalities of the moon's surface, the spots 
in the sun, the moon-like phases ofYenus, the satel- 
lites of Jupiter, the ring of Saturn,) showed, by the 
evidence of the eyes, how inadequate were the concep- 
tions, and how erroneous the doctrines of the ancients, 
respecting the constitution of the universe. How severe 
the blow was to the disciples of the ancient schools, we 
may judge by the extraordinary forms of defence in 
which they tried to intrench themselves. They would 
not look through Galileo's glasses ; they maintained 
that what was seen was an illusion of witchcraft ; and 
they tried, as Galileo says^^, with logical arguments, as if 
with magical incantations, to charm the new planets 
out of the sky. No one could be better fitted than 
Galileo for such a warfare. His great knowledge, clear 
intellect, gaiety, and light irony, (with the advantage 
of being in the right,) enabled him to play with his 
adversaries as he pleased. Thus when an Aristotelian ^' 
rejected the discovery of the irregularities in the moon's 
surface, because, according to the ancient doctrine, her 
form was a perfect sphere, and held that the apparent 
cavities were filled with an invisible crystal substance, 
Galileo replied, that he had no objection to assent to 
this, but that then he should require his adversary in 
return to believe that there were on the same sur- 
face invisible crystal mountains ten times as high as 
those visible ones which he had actually observed and 
measured. 

We find in Galileo many thoughts which have 
since become established maxims of modern philoso- 
phy. "Philosophy," he says^", "is written in that 
great book, I mean the Universe, which is constantly 
open before our eyesj but it cannot be understood, 



23 Hist. Ind. Sc. b. vL c. ii sect. 5. 24 Life of Galileo, p. 29. 

2s Ihid. p. 33. 26 ji Saggiatore, iL 247. 



Il8 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

unless we first know the language and learn the 
characters in which it is written." With this thought 
he combines some other lively images. One of his 
interlocutors says concerning another, "Sarsi perhaps 
thinks that philosophy is a book made up of the fan- 
cies of men, like the Iliad or Orlando Furioso, in 
which the matter of least importance is, that what 
is written be true." And again, with regard to the 
system of authority, he says, "I think I 'discover in 
him a firm belief that, in philosophizing, it is necessary 
to lean upon the opinion of some celebrated author; 
as if our mind must necessarily remain unfruitful and 
barren till it be married to another man's reason." — 
"No," he says, "the case is not so. — When we have 
the decrees of Nature, authority goes for nothing ; 
reason is absolute ^^" 

In the course of Galileo's controversies, questions of 
the logic of science came under discussion. Yincenzio 
di Grazia objected to a proof from induction which 
Galileo adduced, because all the particulars were not 
enumerated; to which the latter justly replies ^^, that if 
induction were required to pass through all the cases, 
it would be either useless or impossible; — impossible 
when the cases are innumerable; useless when they 
have each already been verified, since then the general 
proposition adds nothing to our knowledge. 

One of the most novel of the characters which 
Science assumes in Galileo's hands is, that she becomes 
cautious. She not only proceeds leaning upon Experi- 
ence, but she is content to proceed a little way at a 
time. She already begins to perceive that she must 
lise to the heights of knowledge by many small and 
separate steps. The philosopher is desirous to know 
much, but resigned to be ignorant for a time of that 
which cannot yet be known. Thus when Galileo dis- 
covered the true law of the motion of a falling body^*, 
that the velocity increases pix)portionally to the time 
from the beginning of the fall, he did not insist upon 



27 Zl Saggiatore, ii. 200. 28 jjjcj, i, ^qj, 

» Hist. Ind. Sc. b. vL c. U. sect. 2. 



PRACTICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. II9 

immediately assigning the cause of this law. "The 
cause of the acceleration of the motions of falling 
bodies is not," he says, "a necessary part of the in- 
vestigation." Yet the conception of this acceleration, 
as the result of the continued action of the force of 
gravity upon the falling body, could hardly fail to 
suggest itself to one who had formed the idea of force. 
In like manner, the truth that the velocities, acquired 
by bodies falling down planes of equal heights, are all 
equal, was known to Galileo and his disciples, long 
before he accounted for it^", by the principle, ap- 
parently so obvious, that the momentum generated 
is as the moving force which generates it. He was 
not tempted to rush at once, from an experimental 
truth to a universal system. Science had learnt that 
she must move step by step; and the gravity of her 
pace already indicated her approachiug maturity and 
her consciousness of the long path which lay before 
her. 

But besides the genuine philosophical prudence which 
thus withheld Galileo from leaping hastily from one 
inference to another, he had perhaps a preponderating 
inclination towards facts ; and did not feel, so much as 
some other persons of his time, the need of reducing 
them to ideas. He could bear to contemplate laws of 
motion without being urged by an uncontrollable desire 
to refer them to conceptions of force. 

9. Kepler. — In this respect his friend Kepler differed 
from him ; for Kepler was restless and unsatisfied till 
he had reduced facts to laws, and laws to causes; and 
never acquiesced in ignorance, though he tested with 
the most rigorous scrutiny that which presented itself 
in the shape of knowledge to fill the void. It may be 
seen in the History of Astronomy ^^ with what per- 
severance, enei-gy, and fertility of invention, Kepler 
pursued his labours, (enlivened and relieved by the 
most curious freaks of fancy,) with a view of discover- 
ing the rules v^hich regulate the motions of the planet 



30 Hist Ind. Sc. b. vL c, ii. sect. 4. 3^ Ibid. b. v. c. iv. sect. i. 



120 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

Mars. He represents this employment under the image 
of a warfare; and describes ^^ his object to be "to 
triumph over Mars, and to prepare for him, as for one 
altogether vanquished, tabular prisons and equated 
eccentric fetters/' and when, "the enemy, left at 
home a despised captive, had burst all the chains of 
the equations, and broken forth of the prisons of the 
tables;" — when "it was buzzed here and there that the 
victory is vain, and that the war is raging anew as 
violently as before;" — that is, when the rules which 
he had proposed did not coincide with the facts; — he 
by no means desisted from his attempts, but "suddenly 
sent into the field a reserve of new physical reasonings 
on the rout and dispersion of the veterans," that is, 
tried new suppositions suggested by such views as he 
then entertained of the celestial motions. His efforts 
to obtain the formal laws of the planetary motions 
resulted in some of the most important discoveries 
ever made in astronomy ; and if his physical reason- 
ings were for the time fruitless, this arose only from 
the want of that discipline in mechanical ideas which 
the minds of mathematicians had still to undergo ; for 
the great discoveries of Newton in the next generation 
showed that, in reality, the next step of the advance 
was in this direction. Among all Kepler's fantastical 
expressions, the fundamental thoughts were sound and 
true; namely, that it was his business, as a physical 
investigator, to discover a mathematical rule which 
governed and included all the special facts; and that 
the rules of the motions of the planets must conform 
to some conception of causation. 

The same characteristics, — the conviction of rule and 
cause, perseverance in seeking these, inventiveness in 
devising hypotheses, love of truth in trying and re- 
jecting them, and a lively Fancy playing with the 
Keason without interrupting her, — appear also in his 
work on Optics; in which he tried to discover the 
exact law of optical refraction ^^ In this undertaking 



32 De Stell. Mart. p. iv. c. 51 (1609); Drinkwater's Kepler, p. 33. 
33 Published 1604. Hist. Im. Sc. b. ix. c. iL 



11^ 



PRACTICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. 121 

he did not succeed entirely; nor does he profess to 
have done so. He ends his numerous attempts by 
saying, "Now, reader, you and I have been detained 
sufficiently long while I have been attempting to collect 
into one fagot the measures of different refractions." 

In this and in other expressions, we see how clearly 
he apprehended that colligation of facts which is the 
main business of the practical discoverer. And by his 
peculiar endowments and habits, Kepler exhibits an 
essential portion of this process, which hardly appears 
at all in Galileo. In order to bind together facts, 
theory is requisite as well as observation, — the cord as 
well as the fagots. And the true theory is often, if 
not always, obtained by trying several and selecting 
the right. Now of this portion of the discoverer's 
exertions, Kepler is a most conspicuous example. His 
fertility in devising suppositions, his undaunted indus- 
try in calculating the results of them, his entire honesty 
and candour in resigning them if these results dis- \ ■ 

agreed with the facts, are a very instructive spectacle; . \. 

and are fortunately exhibited to us in the most lively 
manner in his own garrulous narratives. Galileo urged 
men by precept as well as example to begin their phi- 
losophy ff om observation ; Kepler taught them by his 
practice that they must proceed from observation by 
means of hypotheses. The one insisted upon facts ; 
the other dealt no less copiously with ideas. In the 
practical^ as in the speculative portion of our history, 
this antithesis shows itself; although in the practical 
pai-t we cannot have the two elements separated, as in 
the speculative we sometimes have. 

In the History of Science^^, I have devoted several 
pages to the intellectual character of Kepler, inasmuch 
as his habit of devising so great a multitude of hypo- 
theses, so fancifully expressed, had led some writers to 
look upon him as an inquirer who transgressed the 
most fixed rules of philosophical inquiry. This opi- 
nion has arisen, I conceive, among those who have 



34 Hist. Ind. Sc. b. v. c. iv. sect. i. 



122 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

forgotten the necessity of Ideas as well as Facts for 
all theory ; or who have overlooked the impossibility 
of selecting and explicating ,^our ideas without a good 
deal of spontaneous play of the mind. It must, how- 
ever, always be recollected that Kepler's genius and 
fancy derived all their scientific value from his genuine 
and unmingled love of truth. These qualities appeared, 
not only in the judgment he passed upon hypotheses, 
but also in matters which more immediately concerned 
his reputation. Thus when Galileo's discovery of the 
telescope disproved several opinions which Kepler had 
published and strenuously maintained, he did not hesi- 
tate a moment to retract his assertions and range him- 
self by the side of Galileo, whom he vigorously sup- 
ported in his warfare against those who were incapable 
of thus cheerfully acknowledging the triumph of new 
facts over their old theories. 

lo. Tyclio. — There remains one eminent astronomer, 
the friend and fellow-labourer of Kepler, whom we must 
not separate from him as one of the practical reformers 
of science. I speak of Tycho Brahe, who is, I think, 
not justly a-ppreciated by the literary world in general, 
in consequence of his having made a retrograde step 
in that portion of astronomical theory which is most 
familiar to the popular mind. Though he adopted the 
Copernican view of the motion of the planets about 
the sun, he refused to acknowledge the annual and 
diurnal motion of the earth. But notwithstanding 
this mistake, into which he was led by his interpreta- 
tion of Scripture rather than of nature, Tycho must 
ever be one of the greatest names in astronomy. In 
the philosophy of science also, the influence of what 
he did is far from incoDsiderable; and especially its 
value in bringing into notice these two points : — that 
not only are observations the beginning of science, but 
that the progress of science may often depend upon 
the observer's pursuing his task regularly and carefully 
for a long time, and with well devised instruments; 
and again, that observed facts offer a succession of 
laws which we discover as our observations become 
better, and as our theories are better adapted to the 



PRACTICAL REFORMERS OF SCIENCE. 1 23 

observations. With regard to the former point, Tycho's 
observatory was far superior to all that had preceded 
it^^, not only in the optical, but in the mechanical 
arrangements; a matter of almost equal consequence. 
And hence it was that his observations inspired in 
Kepler that confidence which led him to all his la- 
bours and all liis discoveries. "Since," he says^^, "the 
divine goodness has given us in Tycho Brahe an exact 
observer, from whose observations this error of eight 
minutes in the calculations of the Ptolemaic hypothesis 
is detected, let us acknowledge and make use of this 
gift of God : and since this error cannot be neglected, 
these eight minutes alone have prepared the way for 
an entire reform of Astronomy, and are to be the 
main subject of this work." ^yfl 

With regard to Tycho's discoveries respecting the 
moon, it is to be recollected that besides the first in- 
equality of the moon's motion, (the equation of the 
centre, arising from the elliptical form of her orbit,) 
Ptolemy had discovered a second inequality, the evec- 
tion, wliich, as we have observed in the History of ' 

this subject ^^, might have naturally suggested the sus- 
picion that there were still other inequalities. In the 
middle ages, however, such suggestions, implying a 
constant progress in science, were little attended to; 
and, we have seen, that when an Arabian astrono- 
mer^^ had really discovered another inequality of the 
moon, it was soon forgotten, because it had no place in 
the established systems. Tycho not only rediscovered 
the lunar inequality, (the variation,) thus once before 
won and lost, but also two other inequalities; namely ^^, 
the change of inclination of the moon's orbit as the * 

line of nodes moves round, and an inequality in the 
motion of the line of nodes. Thus, as I have else- 
where said, it appeared that the discovery of a rule 
is a step to the discovery of deviations from that 
rule, which require to be expressed in other rules. It 



35 Rist. Ind. Sc. b. vii. c. vi sect i. ^^ De Stell. Mart. p. 11, c. ig. 

37 Eist Ind. Sc. b. ii. c. iv. sect. 6. 38 jjjd!. sect. 8. 

39 Montucla, L 566. 



124 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

became manifest to astronomers, and througli them to 
all philosopliers, that in the application of theory to 
observation, we find, not only the stated phenomena, 
for which the theory does account, but also residual 
phenomena, which are unaccounted for, and remain 
over and above the calculation. And it was seen fur- 
ther, that these residual phenomena might be, alto- 
gether or in part, exhausted by new theories. 

These were valuable lessons ; and the more valuable 
inasmuch as men were now trying to lay down maxims 
and methods for the conduct of science. A revolution 
was not only at hand, but had really taken place, in 
the great body of real cultivators of science. The 
occasion now required that this revolution should be 
formally recognized ; — that the new intellectual jDower 
should be clothed with the forms of government; — 
that the new philosophical republic should be acknow- 
ledged as a sister state by the ancient dynasties of 
Aristotle and Plato. There was needed some great 
Theoretical E-eformer, to speak in the name of the 
Experimental Philosophy; to lay before the world a 
declaration of its rights and a scheme of its laws. And 
thus our eyes are turned to Francis Bacon, and others 
who like him attempted this great office. We quit 
those august and venerable names of discoverers, whose 
appearance was the prelude and announcement of the 
new state of things then opening ; and in doing so, we 
may apply to them the language which Bacon applies 
to himself"'* :— 

Xaipere K-j^pu/ces At6s 0,776X0: -ijS^ Kal dv8p(Sp. 
Hail, Heralds, Messengers of Gods and Men ! 



40 De Augm. lib. iv. c. i. 



CHAPTER Xy. 
Francis Bacon. 



(I.) I. General Remarhs. — It is a matter of some 
difficulty to speak of the character and merits of this 
illustrious man, as regards his place in that philosophical 
history with which we are here engaged. If we were to ii |j 

content ourselves with estimating him according to the H( 

office which, as we have just seen, he claims for himself \ 
as merely the harbinger and announcer of a sounder 
method of scientific inquiry than that which was re- \ 

cognized before him, the task would be comparatively 
easy. For we might select from his writings those 
passages in which he has delivered opinions and point- 
ed out processes, then novel and strange, but since 
confirmed by the experience of actual discoverers, and ^ 

by the judgments of the wisest of succeeding philoso- 
phers ; and we might pass by, without disrespect, but 
without notice, maxims and proposals which have not 
been found available for use; — views so indistinct and 
vague, that we are even yet unable to pronounce upon 
their justice ; — and boundless anticipations, dictated by 
the sanguine hopes of a noble and comprehensive in- 
tellect. But if we thus reduce the philosophy of ^ 
Bacon to that portion which the subsequent progress 
of science has rigorously verified, we shall have to pass 
over many of those declarations which have excited 
most notice in his writings, and shall lose sight of 
many of those striking thoughts which his admirers 
most love to dwell upon. For he is usually spoken 



1 And in other passages : thus, " Ego enim buccinator tantum pugnam 
nou ineo." Nov. Org. lib. iv. c. i. 



126 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

of, at least in this country, as a teacher who not only 
commenced, but in a great measure completed, the 
Philosophy of Induction. He is considered, not only 
as having asserted some general principles, but laid 
down the special rules of scientific investigation; as 
not only one of the Founders, but the supreme Legis- 
lator of the modern Republic of Science; not only the 
Hercules who slew the monsters that obstructed the 
earlier traveller, but the Solon who established a con- 
stitution fitted for all future time. 

2. Nor is it our purpose to deny that of such 
praise he deserves a share which, considering the pe- 
riod at which he lived, is truly astonishing. But it is 
necessary for us in this place to discriminate and select 
that portion of his system which, bearing wpoia. physical 
science, has since been confirmed by the actual history 
of science. Many of Bacon's most impressive and cajD- 
tivating passages contemplate the extension of the new 
methods of discovering truth to intellectual, to moral, 
to political, as well as to physical science. And how 
far, and how, the advantages of the inductive method 
may be secured for those important branches of specu- 
lation, it will at some future time be a highly inter- 
esting task to examine. But our plan requires us at 
present to omit the consideration of these; for our 
purpose is to learn what the genuine course of the for- 
mation of science is, by tracing it in those portions of 
human knowledge, which, by the confession of all, are 
most exact, most certain, most complete. Hence we 
must here deny ourselves the dignity and interest 
which float about all speculations in which the great 
moral and political concerns of men are involved. It 
cannot be doubted that the commanding position which 
Bacon occupies in men's estimation arises from his 
proclaiming a reform in philosophy of so comprehen- 
sive a nature; — a reform which was to infuse a new 
spirit into every part of knowledge. Physical Science 
has tranquilly and noiselessly adopted many of his 
suggestions; which were, indeed, her own natural im- 
pulses, not borrowed from him; and she is too deeply 
and satisfactorily absorbed in contemplating her re- 



FRANCIS BACON. 1 27 

suits, to talk much about the methods of obtaining 
them which she has thus instinctively pursued. But 
the philosophy which deals with mind, with manners, 
with morals, with polity, is conscious still of much ob- 
scurity and perplexity; and would gladly borrow aid 
from a system in which aid is so confidently promised. 
The aphorisms and phrases of the Novum Organon are 
far more frequently quoted by metaphysical, ethical, 
and even theological writers, than they are by the au- 
thors of works on physics. 

3. Again, even as regards physics. Bacon's fame 
rests upon something besides the novelty of the max- 
ims which he promulgated. That a revolution in the 
method of scientific research was going on, all the 
greatest physical investigators of the sixteenth century 
were fully aware, as we have shown in the last chap- 
ter. But their writings conveyed this conviction to 
the public at large somewhat slowly. Men of letters, 
men of the world, men of rank, did not become fa- 
miliar with the abstruse works in which these views 
were published; and above all, they did not, by such 
occasional glimpses as they took of the state of physi- 
cal science, become aware of the magnitude and conse- 
quences of this change. But Bacon's lofty eloquence, 
wide learning, comprehensive views, bold pictures of 
the coming state of things, were fitted to make men 
turn a far more general and earnest gaze upon the 
passing change. When a man of his acquirements, of 
his talents, of his rank and position, of his gravity and 
caution, poured forth the strongest and loftiest expres- 
sions and images which his mind could supply, in 
order to depict the " Great Instauration" which he 
announced; — in order to contrast the weakness, the 
blindness, the ignorance, the wretchedness, under 
which men had laboured while they followed the long 
beaten track, with the light, the power, the privileges, 
which they were to find in the paths to which he 
pointed ; — it was impossible that readers of all classes 
should not have their attention arrested, their minds 
stiiTcd, their hopes warmed; and should not listen 
with wonder and with pleasure to the strains of 



128 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

prophetic eloquence in which so great a subject was 
presented. And when it was found that the pro- 
phecy was verified ; when it appeared that an immense 
change in the methods of scientific research really had 
occurred; — that vast additions to man's knowledge 
and power had been acquired, in modes like those 
which had been spoken of; — that further advances 
might be constantly looked for ; — and that a progress, 
seemingly boundless, was going on in the direction in 
which the seer had thus pointed; — it was natural that 
men should hail him as the leader of the revolution; 
that they should identify him with the event which he 
was the first to announce ; that they should look upon 
him as the author of that which he had, as they per- 
ceived, so soon and so thoroughly comprehended. 

4. For we must remark, that although (as we 
have seen) he was not the only, nor the earliest 
writer, who declared that the time was come for such 
a change, he not only proclaimed it more emphatically, 
but understood it, in its general character, much more 
exactly, than any of his contemporaries. Among the 
maxims, suggestions and anticipations which he threw 
out, there were many of which the wisdom and the 
novelty were alike striking to his immediate succes- 
sors; — there are many which even now, from time to 
time, we find fresh reason to admire, for their acute- 
ness and justice. Bacon stands far above the herd of 
loose and visionary speculators who, before and about 
his time, spoke of the establishment of new philoso- 
phies. If we must select some one philosopher as the 
Hero of the revolution in scientific method, beyond all 
doubt Francis Bacon must occupy the place of honour. 

We shall, however, no longer dwell upon these 
general considerations, but shall proceed to notice some 
of the more peculiar and characteristic features of 
Bacon's philosophy; and especially those views, which, 
occurring for the first time in his writings, have been 
fully illustrated and confirmed by the subsequent pro- 
gress of science, and have become a portion of the per- 
manent philosophy of our times. 

(II.) 5. A New Era announced. — The fii'st great 



FRANCIS BACON. 1 29 

feature whicli strikes us in Bacon's philosopliical views 
is that which we have already noticed; — his confident 
and emphatic announcement of a New Era in the pro- 
gress of science, comjDared with which the advances of 
former times were poor and trifling. This was with 
Bacon no loose and shallow opinion, taken up on light 
grounds and involving only vague, general notions. 
He had satisfied himself of the justice of such a view 
by a laborious course of research and reflection. In 
1605, at the age of forty-four, he j)ublished his Trea- 
tise of the Advance7}ie7it of Learning, in which he 
takes a comprehensive and spirited survey of the con- 
dition of all branches of knowledge which had been 
cultivated up to that time. This work was composed 
with a view to that reform of the existing philosophy 
which Bacon always had before his eyes; and in the 
Latin edition of his works, forms the First Part of the 
Instauratio Magna. In the Second Part of the In- 
stauratio, the Novum Organon, published in 1620, he 
more explicitly and confidently states his expectations 
on this subject. He points out how slightly and feebly 
the examination of nature had been pursued up to his 
time, and with what scanty fruit. He notes the indi- 
cations of this in the very limited knowledge of the 
Greeks who had till then been the teachers of Europe, 
in the complaints of authors concerning the subtilty 
and obscurity of the secrets of nature, in the dissen- 
sions of sects, in the absence of useful inventions re- 
sulting from theory, in the fixed form which the sci- 
ences had retained for two thousand years. Nor, he 
adds^, is this wonderful; for how little of his thought 
and labour has man bestowed upon science! Out of 
twenty-five centuries scarce six have been favourable 
to the progress of knowledge. And even in those 
favoured times, natural philosophy received the small- 
est share of man's attention; while the portion so 
given was marred by controversy and dogmatism; and 
even those who have bestowed a little thought upon 



Lib. I. Afhor. 78 et seq. 



130 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

this pliilosopliy, have never made it their main study, 
but have used it as a passage or drawbridge to serve 
other objects. And thus, he says, the great Mother of 
the Sciences is thrust down with indignity to the of- 
fices of a handmaid ; is made to minister to the labours 
of medicine or mathematics, or to give the first prepa- 
ratory tinge to the immature minds of youth. For 
these and similar considerations of the errors of past 
time, he draws hope for the future, employing the 
same argument which Demosthenes uses to the Athe- 
nians : " That which is worst in the events of the past, 
is the best as a ground of trust in the future. For 
if you had done all that became you, and still had 
been in this condition, your case might be desperate ; 
but since your failure is the result of your own mis- 
takes, there is good hope that, correcting the error of 
your course, you may reach a prosperity yet unknown 
to you." 

(III.) 6. A change of existing Method. — All Bacon's 
hope of improvement indeed was placed in an entire 
change of the Method by which science was pursued; 
and the boldness, and at the same time (the then 
existing state of science beiiig considered), the definite- 
ness of his views of the change that was requisite, are 
truly remarkable. 

That all knowledge must begin with observation, is 
one great principle of Bacon's philosophy; but I hardly 
think it necessary to notice the inculcation of this 
maxim as one of his main services to the cause of sound 
knowledge, since it had, as we have seen, been fully 
insisted upon by others before him, and was growing 
rapidly into general acceptance without his aid. But 
if he was not the first to tell men that they must col- 
lect their knowledge from observation, he had no rival 
in his peculiar office of teaching them how science 
must thus be gathered from experience. 

It appears to me that by far the most extraordinary 
parts of Bacon's works are those in wliich, with extreme 
earnestness and clearness, he insists upon a graduated 
and successive induction^ as opposed to a hasty transit 
from special facts to the highest generalizations. The 



FRANCIS BACON. 



131 



nineteentli Axiom of tlie First Book of the Novut)i 
Organon contains a view of tlie nature of true science 
most exact and profound, and, so far as I am aware, 
at the time perfectly new. " There are two ways, and 
can only be two, of seeking and finding truth. The one, 
from sense and pai'ticulars, takes a flight to the most 
general axioms, and fi-om those principles and their 
truth, settled once for all, invents and judges of inter- 
mediate axioms. The other method collects axioms 
from sense and particulars, ascending continuously and 
hy degrees^ so that in the end it arrives at the most 
general axioms; this latter way is the true one, but 
hitherto untried." 

It is to be remarked, that in this passage Bacon 
employs the term axioms to express any propositions 
collected from facts by induction, and thus fitted to 
become the starting-point of deductive reasonings. 
How far propositions so obtained may approach to the 
character of axioms in the more rigorous sense of the 
term, we have already in some measure examined; 
but that question does not here immediately concern 
us. The truly remarkable circumstance is to find this 
recommendation of a continuous advance from observa- 
tion, by limited steps, through successive gTadations of 
generality, given at a time when speculative men in 
general had only just begun to perceive that they must 
begin their course from experience in some way or 
other. H(5w exactly this description represents the 
general structure of the soundest and most compre- 
hensive physical theories, all persons who have studied 
the progress of science up to modem times can bear 
testimony; but perhaps this structure of science can- 
not in any other way be made so apparent as by those 
Tables of successive generalizations in which we have 
exhibited the history and constitution of some of the 
principal physical sciences, in the Chapter of a pre- 
ceding work which treats of the Logic of Induction. 
And the view which Bacon thus took of the true pro- 
gress of science was not only new, but, so far as I am 
aware, has never been adequately illustrated up to the 
present day. 

K 2 



\ 



132 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCO YERY. 

7. It is true, as I observed in tlie last chapter, tliat 
Galileo had been led to see the necessity, not only of 
proceeding from experience in the pursuit of know- 
ledge, but of proceeding cautiously and gradually ; and 
he had exemplified this rule more than once, when, 
having made one step in discovery, he held back his 
foot, for a time, from the next step, however tempting. 
But Galileo had not reached this wide and command- 
ing view of the successive subordination of many steps, 
all leading up at last to some wide and simple general 
truth. In catching sight of this principle, and in 
ascribing to it its due importance, Bacon's sagacity, so 
far as I am aware, wrought unassisted and unrivalled. 

8. Nor is there any wavering or vagueness in Bacon's 
assertion of this important truth. He repeats it over 
and over again; illustrates it by a great number of 
the most lively metaphors and emphatic expressions. 
Thus he speaks of the successive floors (tdbulata) of 
induction ; and speaks of each science as a pyramid ^ 
which has observation and experience for its basis. 
No images can better exhibit the relation of general 
and particular truths, as our own Inductive Tables 
may serve to show. 

(lY.) 9. Comparison of the New and Old Method. 
Again ; not less remarkable is his contrasting this 
true Method of Science (while it was almost, as he 
says, yet untried) with the ancient and vicious Method, 
which began, indeed, with facts of observation, but 
rushed at once and with no gradations, to the most 
general principles. For this was the course which had 
been actually followed by all those speculative re- 
formers who had talked so loudly of the necessity of 
beginning our philosophy from experience. All these 
men, if they attempted to frame physical doctrines at 
all, had caught up a few facts of observation, and had 



3 Aug. Sc. Lib. iii. c. 4. p. 194. So non intermissos aiit hiulcos a parti- 

in other places, as Nov. Org. i. Aph. culari us ascendetiir ad axiomata 

104. " De scientiis turn denium bene minora, et deinde ad media, alia 

sperandum est qiiando per scalam aliis superiora, et postremo demum 

verani et per gradus continues, et ad generalissinia." 



TRANCIS BACON. 1 33 

erected a uuiversal theory upon tlie suggestions wMcli 
these offered. This process of illicit generalization, or, 
as Bacon terms it, Anticipation of Nature {anticipatio 
naturcE), in opposition to the Interpretation of Nature, 
he depicts with singular acuteness, in its character and 
causes. "These two ways," he says* "both begin from 
sense and particulars ; but their discrepancy is immense. 
The one merely skims over experience and particulars 
in a cursory transit; the other deals with them in a 
due and orderly manner. The one, at its very outset, 
frames certain general abstract principles, but useless ; 
the other gradually rises to those principles which have 
a real existence in nature." 

"The former path," he adds^, "that of illicit and 
hasty generalization, is one which the intellect follows 
when abandoned to its own impulse; and this it does 
from the requisitions of logic. For the mind has a 
yearning which makes it dart forth to generalities, 
that it may have something to rest in; and after a 
little dallying with experience, becomes weary of it; 
and all these evils are augmented by logic, which re- 
quires these generalities to make a show with in its 
disputations." 

"Ill a sober, patient, grave intellect," he further adds, 
"the mind, by its own impulse, (and more especially if 
it be not impelled by the sway of estabKshed opinions) 
attempts in some measure that other and true way, of 
gradual generalization; but this it does with small 
profit ; for the intellect, except it be regulated and 
aided, is a faculty of unequal operation, and altogether 
imapt to master the obscurity of things." 

The profound and searching wisdom of these remarks 
appears more and more, as we apply them to the vari- 
ous attempts which men have made to obtain know- 
ledge; when they begin with the contemplation of a 
few facts, and pursue the?r speculations, as upon most 
subjects they have hitherto generally done; for almost 
all such attempts have led immediately to some process 



* Nov. Org. i. Aph. 22. * lb. Aph. 20, 



134 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

of illicit generalization, whicli introduces an intermin- 
able course of controversy. In the physical sciences, 
however, we have the further inestimable advantage 
of seeing the other side of the contrast exemplified : 
for many of them, as our inductive Tables show us, 
have gone on according to the most rigorous conditions 
of gradual and successive generalization; and in con- 
sequence of this circumstance in their constitution, 
possess, in each part of their structure, a solid truth, 
which is always ready to stand the severest tests of 
reasoiiing and experiment. 

We see how justly and clearly Bacon judged con- 
cerning the mode in which facts are to be employed in 
the construction of science. This, indeed, has ever 
been deemed his great merit: insomuch that many 
persons appear to apprehend the main substance of 
his doctrine to reside in the maxim that facts of obser- 
vation, and such facts alone, are the essential elements 
of all true science. 

(Y.) lo. Ideas are necessary. — Yet we have en- 
deavoured to establish the doctrine that facts are 
but one of two ingredients of knowledge both equally 
necessary;— that Ideas are no less indispensable than 
facts themselves; and that except these be duly un- 
folded and applied, facts are collected in vain. Has 
Bacon then neglected this great portion of his subject? 
Has he been led by some partiality of view, or some 
peculiarity of circumstances, to leave this curious and 
essential element of science in its pristine obscimty? 
"Was he unaware of its interest and importance 1 

We may reply that Bacon's philosophy, in its effect 
upon his readers in general, does not give due weight 
or due attention to the ideal element of our know- 
ledge. He is considered as peculiarly and eminently 
the asserter of the value of experiment and observa- 
tion. He is always understood to belong to the ex- 
periential, as opposed to the ideal school. He is held 
up in contrast to Plato and others who love to dwell 
upon that part of knowledge which has its origin in 
the intellect of man. 

II. Nor can it be denied that Bacon has, in the 



FRANCIS BACON. 135 

finished part of his Novum Organon, put prominently 
forwards the necessary dependence of all our know- 
ledge upon Experience, and said little of its depend- 
ence, equally necessary, upon the Conceptions which 
the intellect itself supplies. It will appear, however, 
on a close examination, that he was by no means in- 
sensible or careless of this internal element of all con- 
nected speculation. He held the balance, with no 
partial or feeble hand, between phenomena and ideas. 
He urged the Colligation of Facts, but he was not the 
less aware of the value of the Explication of Con- 
ceptions. 

12. This appears plainly from some remarkable 
Aphorisms in the Novum Organon. Thus, in noticing 
the causes of the little progress then made by science^, 
he states this; — "In the current Notions, all is un- 
sound, whether they be logical or physical. Suhstance, 
quality, action, passion, even being, are not good Con- 
ceptions; still less are heavy, light, dense, rare, moist, 
dry, generation, corruption, attraction, repulsion, ele- 
ment, matter, form, and others of that kind ; all are 
fantastical and ill-defined." And in his attempt to 
exemplify his own system, he hesitates^ in accepting 
or rejecting the notions of elementary, celestial, rare, 
as belonging to fire, since, as he says, they are vague 
and ill-defined notions {notiones vagce nee bene termi- 
natce). In that part of his work which appears to be 
completed, there is not, so far as I have noticed, any 
attempt to fix and define any notions thus complained 
of as loose and obscure. But yet such an undertaking 
appears to have formed part of his plan ; and in the 
Abecedarium Naturae'^, which consists of the heads of 
various portions of his great scheme, marked by letters 
of the alphabet, we find the titles of a series of dis- 
sertations " On the Conditions of Being," which must 
have had for their object the elucidation of divers 
Notions essential to science, and which would have 



« I Ax 15. 7 2Voi-. Orr<. lib. iL Aph. 19. 

^ Insi. Mag. par. iii. (voL viiL p. 244). 



I' 



136 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

been contributions to the Explication of Conceptions, 
sucb as we have attempted in a former part of this 
work. Thus some of the subjects of these disserta- 
tions are; — Of Much and Little; — Of Durable and 
Transitory; — Of Natural and Monstrous; — Of Natu- 
ral and Artificial. When the philosopher of induction 
came to discuss these, considered as conditions of ex- 
istence, he could not do otherwise than develope, limit, 
methodize, and define the Ideas involved in these 
Notions, so as to make them consistent with them- 
selves, and a fit basis of demonstrative reasoning. His 
task would have been of the same nature as ours has 
been, in that part of this work which treats of the 
Fundamental Ideas of the various classes of sciences. 

13. Thus Bacon, in his speculative philosophy, 
took firmly hold of both the handles of science; and 
if he had completed his scheme, would probably have 
given due attention to Ideas, no less than to Facts, as 
an element of our knowledge; while in his view of 
the general method of ascending from facts to princi- 
ples, he displayed a sagacity truly wonderful. But 
we cannot be surprised, that in attempting to ex- 
emplify the method which he recommended, he should 
have failed. For the method could be exemplified 
only by some important discovery in physical science ; 
and great discoveries, even with the most perfect 
methods, do not come at command. Moreover, al- 
though the general structure of his scheme was cor- 
rect, the precise import of some of its details could 
Jiardly be understood, till the actual progress of science 
h&)d made men somewhat familiar with the kind of 
steps which it included. 

(Vl.) 14. Bacons Example. — Accordingly, Bacon's 
Inquisition into the Nature of Heat, which is given in 
the Second Book of the Novum Organon as an ex- 
ample of the mode of interrogating Nature, cannot be 
looked upon otherwise than as a complete failure. 
This will be evident if we consider that, although the 
exact nature of heat is still an obscure and contro- 
verted matter, the science of Heat now consists of 
many important truths; and that to none of these 



FRANCIS BACON. 137 

truths is there any approximation in Bacon's essay. 
From his process he arrives at this, as the " forma or 
true definition" of heatj — "that it is an expansive, 
restrained motion, modified in certain ways, and ex- 
erted in the smaller particles of the body." But the 
steps by which the science of Heat really advanced 
were (as may be seen in the history^ of the subject) 
these; — The discovery of a measure of heat or tern- \ \'l 

perature (the thermometer) ; the establishment of the . \ I 

laws of conduction and radiation; of the laws of spe- Tyj 

cific heat, latent heat, and the like. Such steps have im 

led to Ampere's Jiypothesis^^, that heat consists in the IPf 

vibrations of an imponderable fiuid; and to Laplace's vV| 

hypothesis, that temperature consists in the internal | f 

radiation of such a fluid. These hypotheses cannot ) | 

yet be said to be even probable; but at least they are Jj 

so modified as to include some of the preceding laws , • 

which are firmly -established ; whereas Bacon's hypo- j 

thetical motion includes no laws of phenomena, ex- ^ 

plains no process, and is indeed itself an example of 
illicit generalization. 

15. One main ground of Bacon's ill fortune in this ; 

undertaking appears to be, that he was not aware of 
an important maxim of inductive science, that we 
must first obtain the measure and ascertain the laios 
of phenomena, before we endeavour to discover their 
causes. The whole history of therm otics up to the 
present time has been occupied with the former step, ' 

and the task is not yet completed : it is no wonder, 
therefore, that Bacon failed entirely, when he so pre- 
maturely attempted the second. His sagacity had 
taught him that the progress of science must be gra- 
dual; but it had not led him to judge adequately how 
gradual it must be, nor of what different kinds of 
inquiries, taken in due order, it must needs consist, 
in order to obtain success. 

Another mistake, which could not fail to render 
it unlikely that Bacon should really exemplify his 



9 Hist. Ind. Sc. b. x. c. i i" I&. c. iv. 



138 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

precepts by any actual advance in science, was, that 
ii8 did not justly appreciate the sagacity, the inventive 
genius, which all discovery requires. He conceived 
that he could supersede the necessity of such peculiar 
endowments. " Our method of discovery in science," 
he says", "is of such a nature, that there is not much 
left to acuteness and strength of genius, but all de- 
grees of genius and intellect are brought nearly to the 
same level." And he illustrates this by comparing 
his method to a pair of compasses, by means of which 
a person with no manual skill may draw a perfect 
circle. In the same spirit he speaks of proceeding by 
due rejections; and appears to imagine that when we 
have obtained a collection of facts, if we go on suc- 
cessively rejecting what is false, we shall at last find 
that we have, left in our hands, that scientific truth 
which we seek. I need not observe how far this view 
is removed from the real state of the case. The ne- 
cessity of a concejjtion which must be furnished by the 
mind in order to bind together the facts, could hardly 
have escaped the eye of Bacon, if he had cultivated 
more carefully the ideal side of his own philosophy. 
And any attempts which he could have made to con- 
struct such conceptions by mere rule and method, 
must have ended in convincing him that nothing but 
a peculiar inventive talent could supply that which 
was thus not contained in the facts, and yet was needed 
for the discovery. 

(YII.) 16. Ris Failure. — Since Bacon, with all his 
acuteness, had not divined circumstances so important 
in the formation of science, it is not wonderful that 
his attempt to reduce this process to a Technical Form 
is of little value. In the first place, he says^^, we 
must prepare a natural and experimental history, good 
and sufiicient; in the next place, the instances thus 
collected are to be arranged in Tables in some orderly 
way; and then we must apply a legitimate and true 
induction. And in his example ^^, he first collects a 



11 Nov. Org. lib. i.'Aph. 61. 
^2 N(yo. Org. lib. IL Aph. 10. ^ Aph. 11. 



i 



FRANCIS BACON. 1 39 

great number of cases in which heat appears under 
various circumstances, which he calls "a Muster of 
Instances before the intellect," (comparentia instan- 
tiarum ad intellectum,) or a Table of the Presence of 
the thing sought. He then adds a Table of its Ab- 
sence in proximate cases, containing instances where 
heat does not appear; then a Table of Degrees, in 
which it appears with greater or less intensity. He 
then adds^^, that we must try to exclude several ob- 
vious suppositions, which he does by reference to some ., 
of the instances he has collected ; and this step he calls j j 
the Exclusive, or the Rejection of Natures. He then I 
observes, (and justly,) that whereas truth emerges more \ 
easily from error than from confusion, we may, after I 
this preparation, give play to the intellect, (fiat permis- 

sio intellectus,) and make an attempt at induction, /ij 

liable afterwards to be corrected; and by this step, ^^ 

which he terms his First Vindemiation, or Inchoate 
Induction, he is led to the proposition concerning 
heat, which we have stated above. 

17. In all the details of his example he is unfortu- 
nate. By proposing to himself to examine at once 
into the nature of heat, instead of the laws of special 
classes of phenomena, he makes, as we have said, a 
fundamental mistake; which is the less surprising 
since he had before him so few examples of the right 
course in the previous history of science. But fur- 
ther, his collection of instances is very loosely brought 
together; for he includes in his list the hot taste of 
aromatic plants, the caustic effects of acids, and many 
other facts which cannot be ascribed to heat without a 
studious laxity in the use of the word. And when he 
comes to that point where he permits his intellect its 
range, the conception of motion upon which it at once 
fastens, appears to be selected with little choice or 
skill, the suggestion being taken from flame ^^, boiling 
liquids, a blown fire, and some other cases. If from 
such examples we could imagine heat to be motion, we 



14 Aph, IS, p. 105, 1* Page no. 



140 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

ought at least to have some gradation to cases of heat 
where no motion is visible, as in a red-hot iron. It 
would seem that, after a large collection of instances 
had been looked at, the intellect, even in its first at- 
tempts, ought not to have dwelt upon such an hypo- 
thesis as this. 

18. After these steps. Bacon speaks of several 
classes of instances which, singling them out of the 
general and indiscriminate collection of facts, he terms 
Instances with Frerogative : and these he points out as 
peculiar aids and guides to the intellect in its task. 
These Instances with Prerogative have generally been 
much dwelt upon by those who have commented on 
the Novum Organon. Yet, in reality, such a classifi- 
cation, as has been observed by one of the ablest 
writers of the present day^^, is of little service in the 
task of induction. For the instances are, for the most 
part, classed, not according to the ideas which they in- 
volve, or to any obvious circumstance in the facts of 
which they consist, but according to the extent or 
manner of their influence upon the inquiry in which 
they are employed. Thus we have Solitary Instances, 
Migrating Instances, Ostensive Instances, Clandestine 
Instances, so termed according to the degree in which 
they exhibit, or seem to exhibit, the property whose 
nature we would examine. We have Guide-Post In- 
stances, (InstanticE Crucis,) Instances of the Parted 
Road, of the Doorway, of the Lamp, according to the 
guidance they supply to our advance. Such a classi- 
fication is much of the same nature as if, having to 
teach the art of building, we were to describe tools 
with reference to the amount and place of the work 
which they must do, instead of pointing out their con- 
struction and use : — as if we were to inform the pupil 
that we must have tools for lifting a stone up, tools 
for moving it sideways, tools for laying it square, 
tools for cementing it firmly. Such an enumeration of 
ends would convey little instruction as to the means. 



i« Herschel, On the Study of Nat. Fhil. Art. 192. 



FRANCIS BACON. 141 

Moreover, many of Bacon's classes of instances are 
vitiated by the assumption that the "form," that is, 
the general law and cause of the property which is the 
subject of investigation, is to be looked for directly in 
the instances; which, as we have seen in his inquiry 
concerning heat, is a fundamental error. 

19. Yet his phraseology in some cases, as in the 
instantia crucis, serves well to mark the place which 
certain experiments hold in our reasonings : and many 
of the special examples which he gives are full of rj|i 

acuteness and sagacity. Thus he suggests swinging a 11 ■ 

pendulum in a mine, in order to determine whether hlf 

the attraction of the earth arises from the attraction of j V 

its parts; and observing the tide at the same moment J ' 

in different parts of the world, in order to ascertain 
whether the motion of the water is expansive or pro- 
gressive ; with other ingenious proposals. These marks 
of genius may serve to counterbalance the unfavour- 
able judgment of Bacon's aptitude for physical science 
which we are sometimes tempted to form, in conse- 
quence of his false views on other points; as his rejec- 
tion of the Copemican system, and his undervaluing 
Gilbert's magnetical speculations. Most of these eiTors 
arose from a too ambitious habit of intellect, which 
would not be contented with any except very wide 
and general truths ; and from an indistinctness of 
mechanical, and perhaps, in general, of mathematical 
ideas : — defects which Bacon's own philosophy was di- 
rected to remedy, and which, in the progress of time, 
it has remedied in others. 

(YIII.) 20. His Idols. — Having thus freely given 
our judgment concerning the most exact and definite 
portion of Bacon's precepts, it cannot be necessary for 
us to discuss at any length the value of those more 
vague and general Warnings against prejudice and par- 
tiality, against intellectual indolence and presumption, 
with which his works abound. His advice and exhor- 
tations of this kind are always expressed with energy 
and point, often clothed in the happiest forms of ima- 
gery; and hence it has come to pass, that such pas- 
sages are perhaps more familiar to the general reader 



142 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

than any otlier part of his writings. Nor are Bacon's 
counsels without their importance, when we have to 
do with those subjects in which prejudice and par- 
tiality exercise their peculiar sway. Questions of poli- 
tics and morals, of manners, taste, or history, cannot 
be subjected to a scheme of rigorous induction; and 
though on such matters we venture to assert general 
principles, these are commonly obtained with some de- 
gree of insecurity, and depend upon special habits of 
thought, not upon mere logical connexion. Here, 
therefore, the intellect may be perverted, by mixing, 
with the pure reason, our gregarious affections, or our 
individual propensities; the false suggestions involved 
in language, or the imposing delusions of received 
theories. In these dim and complex labyrinths of 
human thought, the Idol of the Tribe, or of tJie Den, of 
the Forum, or of the Theatre, may occupy men's minds 
with delusive shapes, and may obscure or pervert their 
vision of truth. But in that Natural Philosophy with 
which we are here concerned, there is little oppor- 
tunity for such influences. As far as a physical theory 
is completed through all the steps of a just induction, 
there is a clear daylight diffused over' it which leaves 
no lurking-place for prejudice. Each part can be ex- 
amined separately and repeatedly; and the theory is 
not to be deemed perfect till it will bear the scrutiny 
of all sound minds alike. Although, therefore. Bacon, 
by warning men against the idols of fallacious images 
above spoken of, may have guarded them from danger- 
ous error, liis precepts have little to do with Natural 
Philosophy : and we cannot agree vtdth him when he 
says^^, that the doctrine concerning these idols bears 
the same relation to the interpretation of nature as 
the doctrine concerning sophistical paralogisms bears 
to common logic. 

(IX.) 21. His Aim, Utility. — There is one very 
prominent feature in Bacon's speculations which we 
must not omit to notice; it is a leading and constant 



1^ Nov. Org. lib. i. Aph. 4a 



PRANCIS BACON". 1 43 

object with Mm to apply his knowledge to Use. The 
insight which he obtains into nature, he would employ 
in commanding nature for the service of man. He 
wishes to have not only principles but works. The 
phrase which best describes the aim of his philosophy 
is his own^^, "Ascendendo ad axiomata, descendendo 
ad opera.'" This disposition appears in the first apho- 
rism of the Novum Organon, and runs through the 
work. " Man, the minister and interpreter of nature, 
does and understands, so far as he has, in fact or in 
thought, observed the course of nature ; and he cannot 
know or do more than this." It is not necessary for 
us to dwell much upon this turn of mind; for the 
whole of our present inquiry goes upon the suppo- | | 

sition that an acquaintance with the laws of nature is ^tj 

worth our having for its own sake. It may be uni- 
versally true, that Knowledge is Power ; but we have 
to do with it not as Power, but as Knowledge. It is 
the formation of Science, not of Art, with which we 
are here concerned. It may give a peculiar interest 
to the history of science, to show how it constantly 
tends to provide better and better for the wants and 
comforts of the body; but that is not the interest 
which engages us in our present inquiry into the na- 
ture and course of philosophy. The consideration of 
the means which promote man's material well-being 
often appears to be invested with a kind of dignity, by 
the discovery of general laws which it involves; and 
the satisfaction which rises in our minds at the con- 
templation of such cases, men sometimes ascribe, with 
a false ingenuity, to the love of mere bodily enjoy- 
ment. But it is never difficult to see that this baser 
and coarser element is not the real source of our ad- 
miration. Those who hold that it is the main business 
of science to construct instruments for the uses of life, 
appear sometimes to be willing to accept the conse- 
quence which follows from such a doctrine, that the 
first shoemaker was a philosopher worthy of the highest 



1" Nov. Org. lib. i. Ax. 103. 



144 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

admiration ^^. But those who maintain such para- 
doxes, often, by a happy inconsistency, make it their 
own aim, not to devise some improved covering for the 
feet, but to deHght the mind with acute speculations, 
exhibited in all the graces of wit and fancy. 

It has been said^° that the key of the Baconian 
dotrine consists in two words, Utility and Progress. 
With regard to the latter point, we have already seen 
that the hope and prospect of a boundless progress in 
human knowledge had sprung up in men's minds, even 
in the early times of imperial Rome ; and were most 
emphatically expressed by that very Seneca who dis- 
dained to reckon the worth of knowledge by its value 
in food and clothing. And when we say that Utility 
was the great business of Bacon's philosophy, we forget 
one-half of his characteristic phrase : " Ascendendo ad 
aximomata," no less than "descendendo ad opera," was, 
he repeatedly declared, the scheme of his path. He 
constantly spoke, we are told by his secretary ^^, of two 
kinds of experiments, experimenta fructifera, and ex- 
peTimenta lucifera. 

Again; when we are told by modern writers that 
Bacon merely recommended such induction as all men 
instinctively practise, we ought to recollect his own 
earnest and incessant declarations to the contrary. The 
induction hitherto practised is, he says, of no use for 
obtaining solid science. There are two ways^^, "hsec 
via in usu est," "altera vera, sed intentata." Men 
have constantly been employed in anticipation ; in illicit 
induction. The intellect left to itself rushes on in this 
road^^; the conclusions so obtained are persuasive^*; 
far more persuasive than inductions made with due 
caution ^^ But still this method must be rejected if 
we would obtain true knowledge. We shall then at 
length have ground of good hope for science when we 



1^ Edinb. Rev. No. cxxxii. p. 65. 20 jj_ 

21 Pref. to the Nat Hist. i. 243. 

2- Nov. Org. lib. i. Aph. iq. 

Ibid. lib. L Aph. 20. 24 j^pj^, 37. 25 /&. 



FRANCIS BACON. I45 

proceed in anotlier manner ^^ We must rise, not by a 
leap, but by small steps, by successive advances, by a 
gradation of ascents, trying our facts, and clearing our 
notions at every interval. The scheme of true philoso- 
phy, according to Bacon, is not obvious and simple, but 
long and technical, requiring constant care and self- 
denial to follow it. And we have seen that, in this 
opinion, his judgment is confirmed by the past history 
and present condition of science. 

Again; it is by no means a just view of Bacon's 
character to place him in contrast to Plato. Plato's 
philosophy was the philosophy of Ideas; but it was 
not left for Bacon to set up the philosophy of Facts in 
opposition to that of Ideas. That had been done fully 
by the speculative reformers of the sixteenth century. 
Bacon had the merit of showing that Facts and Ideas 
must he combined; and not only so, but of divining 
many of the special rules and forms of this combina- 
tion, when as yet there were no examples of them, 
with a sagacity hitherto quite unparalleled. 

(X.) 22. His Perseverance. — With Bacon's un- 
happy political life we have here nothing to do. But 
we cannot but notice with pleasure how faithfully, 
how perseveringly, how energetically he discharged 
his great philosophical office of a Beformer of Methods. 
He had conceived the purpose of making this his ob- 
ject at an early period. When meditating the con- 
tinuation of his Novum Organon, and speaking of his 
reasons for trusting that his work will reach some 
completeness of effect, he says^', "I am by two argu- 
ments thus persuaded. First, I think thus from the 
zeal and constancy of my mind, which has not waxed 
old in this design, nor, after so many years, grown cold 
and indifferent ; I remember that about forty years ago 
I composed a juvenile work about these things, which 
with great contrivance and a pompous title I called 
temporis partv/m maximum, or the most considerable 






26 Aph. 104. So Aph. 105. " In constituendo axiomate forma indudionia 
alia quam adhuc in usu fuit excogitanda est," &c. 

27 Ep. ad P. Fulgentium. Op. x. 330. 

L 



146 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 



birth of time ; Next, that on account of its usefulness, 
it may hope the Divine blessing." In stating the 
grounds of hope for future progress in the sciences, he 
says^^: "Some hope may, we conceive, be ministered 
to men by our own example : and this we say, not for 
the sake of boasting, but because it is useful to be said. 
If any despond, let them look at me, a man among all 
others of my age most occupied with civil affairs, nor 
of very sound health, (which brings a great loss of 
time ;) also in this attempt the first explorer, following 
the footsteps of no man, nor communicating on these 
subjects with any mortal; yet, having steadily entered 
upon the true road and made my mind submit to 
things themselves, one who has, in this undertaking, 
made, (as we think,) some progress." He then pro- 
ceeds to speak of what may be done by the combined 
and more prosperous labours of others, in that strain 
of noble hope and confidence, which rises again and 
again, like a chorus, at intervals in every part of his 
writings. In the Advancement of Learning he had 
said, " I could not be true and constant to the argu- 
ment I handle, if I were not willing to go beyond 
others, but yet not more willing than to have others 
go beyond me again." In the Preface to the Instau- 
ratio Magna, he had placed among his postulates those 
expressions which have more than once warmed the 
breast of a philosophical reformer ^^. " Concerning our- 
selves we speak not; but as touching the matter which 
we have in hand, this we ask ; — that men be of good 
hope, neither feign and imagine to themselves this 
our Reform as something of infinite dimension and 
beyond the grasp of mortal man, when in truth it 
is the end and true limit of infinite error; and is bv 
no means unmindful of the condition of mortality and 
humanity, not confiding that such a thing can be 
carried to its perfect close in the space of a single age, 
but assigning it as a task to a succession of genera- 
tions." In a later portion of the Instauratio he 



28 Nov. Org. i. Aph. 113. 
29 See the motto to Kaut's Krltik dsr liducn Vernunft. 



FRANCIS BACON. I47 

says : "We bear the strongest love to the human re- 
puhlic our common country; and we by no means 
abandon the hope that there will arise and come forth 
some man among posterity, who will be able to receive 
and digest all that is best in what we deliver; and 
whose care it will be to cultivate and perfect such 
things. Therefore, by the blessing of the Deity, to 
tend to this object, to open up the fountains, to dis- 
cover the useful, to gather guidance for the way, shall 
be our task; and from this we shall never., while we 
remain in life, desist." 

(XI.) 23. His Piety. — We may add, that the spirit 
of piety as well as of hope which is seen in this passage, 
appears to have been habitual to Bacon at all periods 
of his life. We find in his works several drafts of por- 
tions of his great scheme, and several of them begin 
with a prayer. One of these entitled, in the edition 
of his works, " The Student's Prayer," appears to me 
to belong probably to his early youth. Another, en- 
titled "The Writer's Prayer," is inserted at the end 
of the Preface of the Instauratio, as it was finally pub- 
lished. I will conclude my notice of this wonderful 
man by inserting here these two prayers. 

''To God the Father, God the Word, God the Spirit, 
we pour forth most humble and hearty supplications ; 
that he, remembering the calamities of mankind, and 
the pilgrimage of this our life, in which we wear out 
days few and evil, would please to open to us new 
refreshments out of the fountains of his goodness for 
the alleviating of our miseries. This also we humbly 
and earnestly beg, that human things may not preju- 
dice such as are divine ; neither that, from the unlock- 
ing of the gates of sense, and the kindling of a greater 
natural light, anything of incredulity, or intellectual 
night, may arise in our minds towards divine mysteries. 
But rather, that by our mind thoroughly cleansed and 
purged from fancy and vanities, and yet subject and 
perfectly given up to the Divine oracles, there may be 
given unto faith the things that are faith's." 

" Thou, Father, who gavest the visible light as 
the first-born of thy creatures, and didst pour into 

L 2 



148 PHILOSOPHY OF D1SC07ERT. 

man the intellectual liglit as the top and consumma- 
tion of thy workmanship, be pleased to protect and 
govern this work, which coming from thy goodness, 
returneth to thy glory. Thou, after thou hadst re- 
viewed the works which thy hands had made, be- 
heldest that everything was very good, and thou didst 
rest with complacency in them. But man, reflecting 
on the works which he had made, saw that all was 
vanity and vexation of spirit, and could by no means 
acquiesce in them. Wherefore, if we labour in thy 
works with the sweat of our brows, thou wilt make 
us partakers of thy vision and thy Sabbath. We 
humbly beg that this mind may be steadfastly in us ; 
and that thou, by our hands, and also by the hands of 
others on whom thou shalt bestow the same spirit, wilt 
please to convey a largess of new alms to thy family of 
mankind. These things we commend to thy everlasting 
love, by our Jesus, thy Christ, God with us. Amen." 



CHAPTEE XYI. 

Additional Eemaeks on Fkancis Bacon. 



FEANCIS BACOlSr and Ms works have recently 
been discussed and examined by various writers 
in France and Germany as well as England \ Not to 
mention smaller essays, M. Bouillet has published a 
valuable edition of his philosopliical works; Count 
Joseph de Maistre wrote a severe critique of his philo- 
sophy, which has been published since the death of 
the author; M. Charles Eemusat has written a lucid 
and discriminating Essay on the subject; and in Eng- 
land we have had a new edition of the works pub- 
lished, with a careful and thoughtful examination of 
the philosophy which they contain, written by one of 
the editors : a person especially fitted for such an ex- 
amination by an acute intellect, great acquaintance 
with philosophical literature, and a wide knowledge 
of modern science. Eobert Leslie Ellis, the editor 
of whom I speak, died during the pubKcation of the 
edition, and before he had done full justice to his 
powers; but he had already written various disserta- 
tions on Bacon's philosophy, which accompany the 
different Treatises in the new edition. 

Mr. Ellis has given a more precise view than any of 
his predecessors had done of the nature of Bacon's 



1 (Euvres PhUosophiques de Bacon, de Frangois Bacon, par J. B. de Vau- 

d'c. par M. N. Bouillet, 3 Tomes. gelles. 

Exarmn de la Philosophic de Bacon Franz Baco von Verulam, von 

((Euvres Posthumes du Comte J. de Kuno Fischer. 

Maistre). The Works of FraiuAs Bacon, col- 
Bacon, sa Vie, son Temps, sa Philo- lected and edited by James Spedding, 

scphie, par Charles de Remusat. ilobert Leslie EUis, and Douglas 

Mistoire de la Vie et des Ouvrages Denon Heath. 



150 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

induction and of his pliilosopliy of discovery. Bacon's 
object was to discover the ' natures' or essences of 
things, in order that he might reproduce these natures 
or essences at will; he conceived that these natures 
were limited in number, and manifested in various 
combinations in the bodies which exist in the uni- 
verse ; so that by accumulating observations of them 
in a multitude of cases, we may learn by induction in 
what they do and in what they do not consist ; the In- 
duction which is to be used for this purpose consists 
in a great measure of excluding the cases which do 
not exhibit the 'nature' in question; and by such 
exclusion, duly repeated, we have at last left in our 
hands the elements of which the proposed nature con- 
sists. And the knowledge which is thus obtained may 
be applied to reproduce the things so analysed. As 
exhibiting this view clearly we may take a passage in 
the Sylva Sylvarum : " Gold has these natures : great- 
ness of weight, closeness of parts, fixation, pliantness or 
softness, immunity from rust, colour or tincture of 
yellow. Therefore the sure way, though most about, to 
make gold, is to know the causes of the several na- 
tures before rehearsed, and the axioms concerning the 
same. For if a man can make a metal, that hath all 
these properties, let men dispute whether it be gold 
or no." He means that however they dispute, it is 
gold for all practical purposes. 

For such an Induction as this. Bacon claims the 
merit both of being certain, and of being nearly inde- 
pendent of the ingenuity of the inquirer. It is a 
method which enables all men to make exact dis- 
coveries, as a pair of compasses enables all men to 
draw an exact circle. 

Now it is necessary for us, who are exploring the 
progress of the true philosophy of discovery, to say 
plainly that this part of Bacon's speculation is erro- 
neous and valueless. No scientific discovery ever has 
been made in this way. Men have not obtained truths 
concerning the natural world by seeking for the na- 
tures of things, and by extracting them from pheno- 
mena by rejecting the cases in which they were not. 



ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON FRANCIS BACON. I5I 

On the contrary, they have begun by ascertaining the 
laws of the phenomena; and have then gone on, not 
by a mechanical method which levels all intellect, but 
by special efforts of the brightest intellects to catch 
hold of the ideas by which these laws of phenomena 
might be interpreted and expressed in more general 
terms. These two steps, the finding the laws of phe- 
nomena, and finding the conceptions by which those 
laws can be expressed, are really the course of dis- 
covery, as the history of science exhibits it to us. 

Bacon, therefore, according to the view now pre- 
sented, was wrong both as to his object and as to his 
method. He was wrong in taking for his object the 
essences of things, — the causes of abstract properties : 
for these man cannot, or can very rarely discover; 
and all Bacon's ingenuity in enumerating and classify- 
ing these essences and abstract properties has led, and 
could lead, to no result. The vast results of modem 
science have been obtained, not by seeking and finding 
the essences of things, but by exploring the laws of 
phenomena and the causes of those laws. 

And Bacon's method, as well as his object, is vitiated 
by a pervading error : — the error of supposing that to be 
done by method which must be done by mind; — that 
to be done by rule which must be done by a flight 
beyond rule; — that to be mainly negative which is 
eminently positive; — that to depend on other men 
which must depend on the discoverer himself; — that 
to be mere prose which must have a dash of poetry; — 
that to be a work of mere labour which must be also 
a work of genius. 

Mr. Ellis has seen very clearly and explained very 
candidly that this method thus recommended by Bacon 
has not led to discovery. " It is," he says, " neither to 
the technical part of his method nor to the details of 
his view of the nature and progress of science, that his 
great fame is justly owing. His merits are of another 
kind. They belong to the spirit rather than to the 
positive precepts of his philosophy." 

As the reader of the last chapter vnll see, this 
amounts to much the same as the account which I 



.*: 



152 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

had given of the positive results of Bacon's method, and 
the real value of that portion of his philosophy which 
he himself valued most. But still there remain, as I 
have also noted, portions of Bacon's speculations which 
have a great and enduring value, namely, his doctrine 
that Science is the Interpretation of Kature, his dis- 
tinction of this Interpretation of Nature from the 
vicious and premature Anticipation of Nature which 
had generally prevailed till then; and the recom- 
mendation of a graduated and successive induction by 
wliich alone the highest and most general truths were 
to be reached. These are points which he urges with 
great clearness and with great earnestness; and these 
are important points in the true philosophy of dis- 
covery. 

I may add that Mr. Ellis agrees with me in noting 
the invention of the conception by which the laws of 
phenomena are interpreted as sometliing additional to 
Induction, both in the common and in the Baconian 
sense of the w^ord. He says (General Preface, Art. 9), 
"In all cases this process [scientific discovery] in- 
volves an element to which nothing corresponds in the 
Tables of Comparence and Exclusion; namely the 
application to the facts of a principle of arrangement, 
an idea, existing in the mind of the discoverer an- 
tecedently to the act of inductiou." It may be said 
that this principle or idea is aimed at in the Baconian 
analysis. "And this is in one sense true: but it 
must be added, that this analysis, if it be thought 
right to call it so, is of the essence of the discovery 
which results from it. To take for granted that it 
has been already effected is simply a petitio principii. 
In most cases the mere act of induction follows as a 
matter of course as soon as the approp)riate idea has 
been introduced." And as an example he takes Kep- 
ler's invention of the ellipse, as the idea by which 
Mars's motions could be reduced to law; making the 
same use of this example which we have repeatedly 
made of it. 

Mr. Ellis may at first sight appear to express him- 
self more favourably than I liave done, with regard to 



ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON FRANCIS BACON. 1 53 

the value of Bacon's Inquisitio in Naturam Calidi in 
tlie Second Book of the Novum Organon. He says of 
one part of it^: "Bacon here anticipates not merely 
the essential character of the most recent theory of 
heat, but also the kind of evidence by which it has 
been established. ...The merit of having perceived the 
true significance of the production of heat by friction 
belongs of right to Bacon." 

But notwithstanding this, Mr. Ellis's general judg- 
ment on this specimen of Bacon's application of his 
own method does not differ essentially from mine. 
He examines the Inquisitio at some length, and finally 
says : " If it were afiirmed that Bacon, after having 
had a glimpse of the truth suggested by some obvious 
phenomena, had then recourse, as he himself expresses 
it, to certain ' differentise inanes' in order to save the 
phenomena, I think it would be hard to dispute the 
truth of the censure." 

Another of the Editors of this edition (Mr. Sped- 
ding) fixes his attention upon another of the features 
of the method of discovery proposed by Bacon, and is 
disposed to think that the proposed method has never 
yet had justice done it, because it has not been tried 
in the way and on the scale that Bacon proposes^. 
Bacon recommended that a great collection of facts 
should be at once made and accumulated, regarding 
every branch of human knowledge ; and conceived 
that, when this had been done by common observers, 
philosophers might extract scientific truths from this 
mass of facts by the application of a right method. 
This separation of the offices of the observer and dis- 
coverer, Mr. Spedding thinks is shown to be possible 
by such practical examples as meteorological observa- 
tions, made by ordinary observers, and reduced to 
tables and laws by a central calculator; by hydi^ogra- 
phical observations made by ships provided with pro- 
per instructions, and reduced to general laws by the 



i 



2 Note to Aph. xviii. 
Pref. to the Farascauc, Yol. L p. 382. 



154 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

man of science in Ms study; by magnetical observa- 
tions made by many persons in every part of the world, 
and reduced into subservience to theory by mathema- 
ticians at home. 

And to this our reply will be, in the terms which 
the history of all the Sciences has taught us, that such 
methods of procedure as this do not belong to the 
Epoch of Discovery^ but to the Period of verification 
and application of the discovery which follows. When 
'. a theory has been established in its general form, our 

knowledge of the distribution of its phenomena in 
time and space can be much promoted by ordinary ob- 
servers scattered over the earth, and succeeding each 
other in time, provided they are furnished with instru- 
ments and methods of observation, duly constructed 
on the principles of science; but such observers can- 
not in any degree supersede the discoverer who is first 
to establish the theory, and to introduce into the facts 
a new principle of order. When the laws of nature 
have been caught sight of, much may be done, even 
- , by ordinary observers, in verifying and exactly deter- 

( j mining them ; but when a real discovery is to be made, 

n this separation of the observer and the theorist is not 

2^ossible. In those cases, the questioning temper, the 
4'. busy suggestive mind, is needed at every step, to di- 

■'■' rect the operating hand or the open gaze. No possible 

accumulation of facts about mixture and heat, collected 
in the way of blind trial, could have led to the doc- 
trines of chemistry, or crystallography, or the atomic 
theory, or voltaic and chemical and magnetic polarity, 
or physiology, or any other science. Indeed not only 
is an existing theory requisite to supply the observer 
with instruments and methods, but without theory he 
cannot even describe his observations. He says that 
he mixes an acid and an alkali ; but what is an acid % 
What is an alkali? How does he know them? He 
classifies crystals according to their forms : but till he 
has learnt what is distinctive in the form of a crystal, 
he cannot distinguish a cube from a square prism, even 
if he had a goniometer and could use it. And the like 
impossibility hangs over all the other subjects. To 



ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON FRANCIS BACON. 1 55 

report facts for scientific purposes without some aid 
from theory, is not only useless, but impossibe. 

When Mr. Speclding says, " I could wish that men 
of science would apply themselves earnestly to the 
solution of this practical problem: What measures 
are to be taken in order that the greatest variety of 
judicious observations of nature all over the world 
may be carried on in concert upon a common plan and 
brought to a common centre :" — he is urging upon men 
of science to do what they have always done, so far as 
they have had any power, and in proportion as the 
state of science rendered such a procedure possible and 
profitable to science. In Astronomy, it has been done 
from the times of the Greeks and even of the Chal- 
deans, having been begun as soon as the heavens were 
reduced to law at all. In meteorology, it has been 
done extensively, though to little purpose, because the 
weather has not yet been reduced to rule. Men of sci- 
ence have shown how barometers, thermometers, hy- 
grometers, and the like, may be constructed; and these 
may be now read by any one as easily as a clock; but 
of ten thousand meteorological registers thus kept by 
ordinary observers, what good has come to science 
Again: The laws of the tides have been in a great 
measure determined by observations in all parts of the 
globe, because theory pointed out what was to be ob- 
served. In like manner the facts of terrestrial mag- 
netism were ascertained with tolerable completeness 
by extended observations, then, and then only, when a 
most recondite and profound branch of mathematics 
had pointed out what was to be observed, and most 
ingenious instruments had been devised by men of 
science for observing. And even with these, it re- 
quires an education to use the instruments. But in 
many cases no education in the use of instruments de- 
vised by others can supersede the necessity of a theo- 
retical and suggestive spirit in the inquirer himself 
He must devise his own instruments and his own me- 
thods, if he is to make any discovery. What chemist, 
or inquirer about polarities, or about optical laws yet 
undiscovered, can make any progress by using another 



156 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

man's experiments and observations? He must invent 
at every step of his observation ; and the observer and 
theorist can no more be dissevered, than the body and 
soul of the inquirer. 

That persons of moderate philosophical powers may, 
when duly educated, make observations which may be 
used by greater discoverers than themselves, is true. 
We have examples of such a subordination of scientific 
offices in astronomy, in geology, and in many other 
departments. But still, as I have said, a very con- 
siderable degree of scientific education is needed even 
for the subordinate labourers in science; and the more 
considerable in proportion as science advances further 
and further; since every advance implies a knowledge 
of what has already been done, and requires a new 
precision or generality in the new points of inquiry. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
Fkom Bacon to Newton. 



I. Harvey > — ^We have already seen that Bacon 
was by no means the first mover or principal author of 
the revolution in the method of philosophizing which 
took place in his time; but only the writer who pro- 
claimed in the most impressive and comprehensive 
manner, the scheme, the profit, the dignity, and the 
prospects of the new philosophy. Those, therefore, 
who after him, took up the same views are not to be 
considered as his successors, but as his fellow-labourers j 
and the line of historical succession of opinions must 
be pursued without special reference to any one lead- 
ing character, as the principal figure of the epoch. I 
resume this line, by noticing a contemporary and 
fellow-countryman of Bacon, Harvey, the discoverer of 
the circulation of the blood. This discovery was not 
published and generally accepted till near the end of 
Bacon's life; but the anatomist's reflections on the 
method of pursuing science, though strongly marked 
with the character of the revolution that was taking 
place, belong to a very difierent school from the Chan- 
cellor's. Harvey was a pupil of Fabricius of Acqua- 
pendente, whom we noticed among the practical re- 
formers of the sixteenth century. He entertained, 
like his master, a strong reverence for the great names 
which had ruled in philosophy up to that time, Aris- 
totle and Galen; and was disposed rather to recom- 
mend his own method by exhibiting it as the true 
interpretation of ancient wisdom, than to boast of its 
novelty. It is true, that he assigns, as his reason for 



158 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

publisMng some of his researches^, "that by revealing 
the method I use in searching into things, I might 
propose to studious men, a new and (if I mistake not) 
a surer path to the attainment of knowledge^;" but 
he soon proceeds to fortify himself with the authority 
of Aristotle. In doing this, however, he has the very 
great merit of giving a living and practical character 
to truths which exist in the Aristotelian works, but 
which had hitherto been barren and empty professions. 
We have seen that Aristotle had asserted the im- 
portance of experience as one root of knowledge ; and 
in this had been followed by the schoolmen of the 
middle ages: but this assertion came with very dif- 
ferent force and effect from a man, the whole of whose 
life had been spent in obtaining, by means of expe- 
rience, knowledge which no man had possessed before. 
In Harvey's general reflections, the necessity of both 
the elements of knowledge, sensations and ideas, ex- 
perience and reason, is fully brought into view, and 
rightly connected with the metaphysics of Aristotle. 
He puts the antithesis of these two elements with 



. ; 1 Anatomical Exercitations con- knowledge of those less considerable 
y.| cerning the Generation of Living Crea- secrets of Nature, but even a certain 
Jr} tures, 1653. Preface. admiration of that Supreme Essence, 
2 He used similar expressions in the Creator. And though I have 
conversation. George Ent, who edit- ever been ready to acknowledge, that 
] ed his Generation of AniTnaZs, visited many things have been discovered 
1 him, "at that time residing not far by learned men of former times; yet 
from the city ; and found him very do I still believe that the number of 
intent upon the perscrutation of those which remain yet concealed in 
nature's works, and with a counte- the darkness of impervestigable Na- 
nance as cheerful, as mind imper- ture is much greater. Nay, I cannot 
turbed; Democritus - like, chiefly forbear to wonder, and sometimes 
searching into the cause of natural smile at those, who persuade them- 
things." In the course of conversa- selves, that aU things were so con- 
tion the writer said, "It hath always simimately and absolutely delivered 
been your choice about the secrets of by Aristotle, Galen, or some other 
Nature, to consult Nature herself." great name, as that nothing was left 
" 'Tis true," replied he ; " and I have to the superaddition of any that sue- 
constantly been of opinion that from ceeded." 
thence we might acquire not only the ; • 



FROM BACON TO NEWTON. 1 59 

great clearness. " Universals are chiefly known to us, 
for science is begot by reasoning from universals to 
particulars ; yet that very comprehension of universals 
in the understanding springs from the perception of 
singulars in our sense." Again, he quotes Aristotle's 
apparently opposite assertions : — that made in his Fhy- 
sics^, "that we must advance from things which are 
first known to us, though confusedly, to things more 
distinctly intelligible in themselves; from the whole 
to the part; from the universal to the particular;" 
and that made in the Analytics^ ; that " Singulars are 
more known to us and do first exist according to 
sense : for nothing is in the understanding which was 
not before in the sense." Both, he says, are • true, 
though at first they seem to clash : for " though in 
knowledge we begin with sense, sensation itself is a 
universal thing." This he further illustrates; and! 
quotes Seneca, who says, that "Art itself is nothing! 
but the reason of the work, implanted in the Artist's 
mind :" and adds, " the same way by which we gain 
an Art, by the very same way we attain any kind of 
science or knowledge whatever ; for as Art is a habit 
whose object is something to be done, so Science is a 
habit whose object is something to be known; and as 
the former proceedeth from the imitation of examples, 
so this latter, from the knowledge of things natural. 
The source of both is from sense and experience ; since 
[but?] it is impossible that Art should be rightly pur- 
chased by the one or Science by the other without 
a direction from ideas." Without here dwelling on 
the relation of Art and Science, (very justly stated by 
Harvey, except that ideas exist in a very different 
form in the mind of the Artist and the Scientist) it will 
be seen that this doctrine, of science springing from 
experience with a direction from ideas, is exactly that 
which we have repeatedly urged, as the true view of 
the subject. From this view, Harvey proceeds to infer 
the importance of a reference to sense in his own 



Lib. i. c. 2, 3. 4 Anal. Post ii. 



l6o PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

subject, not only for first discovering, but for receiving 
knowledge : "Without experience, not other men's but 
our own, no man is a proper disciple of any part of 
natural knowledge ; without experimental skill in ana- 
tomy, he will no better apprehend what I shall deliver 
concerning generation, than a man born blind can 
judge of the nature and difference of colours, or one 
born deaf, of sounds." " If we do otherwise, we may 
get a humid and floating opinion, but never a solid 
and infallible knowledge: as is happenable to those 
who see foreign countries only in maps, and the bowels 
of men falsely described in anatomical tables. And 
hence it comes about, that in this rank age, we have 
many sophisters and bookwrights, but few wise men 
and philosophers." He had before declared "how 
unsafe and degenerate a thing it is, to be tutored by 
other men's commentaries, without making trial of the 
things themselves; especially since Nature's book is 
so open and legible." We are here reminded of Gali- 
leo's condemnation of the "paper philosophers." The 
train of thought thus expressed by the practical dis- 
coverers, spread rapidly with the spread of the new 
knowledge that had suggested it, and soon became 
general and unquestioned. 

2. Descartes. — Such opinions are now among the 
most familiar and popular of those which are current 
among writers and speakers; but we should err much 
if we were to imagine that after they were once pro- 
pounded they were never resisted or contradicted. In- 
deed, even in our own time, not only are such maxims 
very often practically neglected or forgotten, but 
the opposite opinions, and views of science quite in- 
consistent with those we have been explaining, are 
often promulgated and widely accepted. The philoso- 
phy of pure ideas has its commonplaces, as well as the 
philosophy of experience. And at the time of which 
we speak, the former philosophy, no less than the 
latter, had its great asserter and expounder; a man in 
his own time more admired than Bacon, regarded 
with more deference by a large body of disciples all 
over Europe, and more powerful in stirring up men's 



FROM BACON TO NEWTON. l6l 

minds to a new activity of inquiry. I speak of Des- 
cartes, whose labours, considered as a philosophical 
system, were an endeavour to revive the method of 
obtaining knowledge by reasoning from our own ideas 
only, and to erect it in opposition to the method of 
observation and experiment. The Cartesian philoso- 
phy contained an attempt at a counter-revolution. 
Thus in this author's Principia Fhiloso'pliicie^ ^ he says 
that "he will give a short account of the principal 
phenomena of the world, not that he may use them as 
reasons to prove anything; for," adds he, "we desire 
to deduce effects from causes, not causes from effects; 
but only in order that out of the innumerable effects 
which we learn to be capable of resulting from the 
same causes, we may determine our mind to consider 
some rather than others." He had before said, " The 
principles which we have obtained [by pure a jpriori 
reasoning] are so vast and so fruitful, that many more 
consequences follow from them than we see contained 
in this visible world, and even many more than our 
mind can ever take a fall survey of" And he pro- 
fesses to apply this method in detail. Thus in at- 
tempting to state the three fundamental laws of mo- 
tion, he employs only a iwiori reasoniDgs, and is in 
fact led into error in the third law which he thus ob- 
tains ^ And in his Dioptrics'^ he pretends to deduce 
the laws of reflection and refraction of light from cer- 
tain comparisons (which are, in truth, arbitrary,) in 
which the radiation of light is represented by the mo- 
tion of a ball impinging upon the reflecting or refract- 
ing body. It might be represented as a curious in- 
stance of the caprice of fortune, which appears in sci- 
entific as in other history, that Kepler, professing to 
derive all his knowledge from experience, and exert- 
ing himself with the greatest energy and perseverance, 
failed in detecting the law of refraction; while Des- 
cartes, who professed to be able to despise experiment, 
obtained the true law of sines. But as we have stated 



s Pars iii. p. 45. s gge Hist Ind. Sc. b. vL c. ii. 7 Cap. i. iL 

M 



l6z PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

in the History^, Descartes appears to have learnt this 
law from Snell's papers. And whether this be so or 
not, it is certain that notwithstanding the profession of 
independence which his philosophy made, it was in 
reality constantly guided and instructed by experience. 
Thus in explaining the Rainbow (iu which his portion 
of the discovery merits great praise) he speaks^ of 
taking a globe of glass, allowing the sun to shine on 
one side of it, and noting the colours produced by rays 
after two refractions and one reflection. And in many 
other instances, indeed in all that relates to physics, 
the reasonings and explanations of Descartes and his 
followers were, consciously or unconsciously, directed 
by the known facts, which they had observed them- 
selves or learnt from others. 

But since Descartes thus, speculatively at least, set 
himself in opposition to the great reform of scientific 
method which was going on in his time, how, it may 
be asked, did he acquire so strong an influence over 
the most active minds of his time 1 How is it that he 
became the founder of a large and distinguished school 
of philosophers? How is it that he not only was 
mainly instrumental in deposing Aristotle from his in- 
tellectual throne, but for a time appeared to have esta- 
blished himself with almost equal powers, and to have 
rendered the Cartesian school as firm a body as the 
Peripatetic liad been? 

The causes to be assigned for this remarkable result 
are, I conceive, the following. In the first place, the 
physicists of the Cartesian school did, as I have just 
stated, found their philosophy upon experiment, and 
did not practically, or indeed, most of them, theo- 
retically, assent to their master's boast of showing 
what the phenomena must he, instead of looking to see 
what they are. And as Descartes had really incorpo- 
rated in his philosophy all the chief physical disco- 
veries of his own and preceding times, and had de- 
livered, in a more general and systematic shape than 



^ Hist. Ind. Sc. b. ix. c. ii. ^ Mdeoi^m, c. viii. p. 187. 



FROM BACON TO NEWTON. 1 63 

any one before him, tlie principles wMcli lie tlius esta- 
blished, the physical philosophy of his school was in 
reality far the best then current; and was an immense 
improvement upon the Aristotelian doctrines, which 
had not yet been displaced as a system. Another cir- 
cumstance which gained him much favour, was the 
bold and ostentatious manner in which he professed 
to begin his philosophy by liberating himself from all 
preconceived prejudice. The first sentence of his phi- 
losophy contains this celebrated declaration: "Since," 
he says, " we begin life as infants, and have contracted 
various judgments concerning sensible things before 
we possess the entire use of our reason, we are turned 
aside from the knowledge of truth by many prejudices : 
from which it does not appear that we can be any 
otherwise delivered, than if once in our life we make 
it our business to doubt of everything in which we 
discern the smallest suspicion of uncertainty." In the 
face of this sweeping rejection or unhesitating scrutiny 
of all preconceived opinions, the power of the ancient 
authorities and masters in philosophy must obviously 
shrink away; and thus Descartes came to be con- 
sidered as the great hero of the overthrow of the Aris- 
totelian dogmatism. But in addition to these causes, 
and perhaps more powerful than all in procuring the 
assent of men to his doctrines, came the deductive and 
systematic character of his philosophy. For although 
all knowledge of the external world is in reality only 
to be obtained from observation, by inductive steps, — 
minute, perhaps, and slow, and many, as Galileo and 
Bacon had already taught ; — the human mind conforms 
to these conditions reluctantly and unsteadily, and is 
ever ready to rush to general principles, and then to 
employ itself in deducing conclusions from these by 
synthetical reasonings; a task grateful, from the dis- 
tinctness and certainty of the result, and the accom- 
panying feeling of our own sufficiency. Hence men 
readily overlooked the precarious character of Des- 
cartes' fundamental assumptions, in their admiration 
of the skill with which a varied and complex Universe 
was evolved out of them. And the complete and 

M 2 



164 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

systematic character of this philosophy attracted men 
no less than its logical connexion. I may quote here 
what a philosopher ^° of onr own time has said of another 
writer : " He owed his inflnence to various causes ; at 
the head of which may be placed that genius for sys- 
tem which, though it cramps the growth of know- 
ledge, jjerhaps finally atones for that mischief by the 
zeal and activity which it rouses among followers and 
opponents, who discover truth by accident when in 
pursuit of weapons for their warfare. A system which 
attempts a task so hard as that of subjecting vast pro- 
vinces of human knowledge to one or two principles, 
if it presents some striking instances of conformity to 
superficial o.ppearances, is sure to delight the framer ; 
and for a time to subdue and captivate the student too 
entirely for sober reflection and rigorous examination. 
In the first instance consistency passes for truth. When 
principles in some instances have proved sufiicient to 
give an unexpected explanation of facts, the delighted 
reader is content to accept as true all other deductions 
from the principles. Specious premises being assumed 
to be true, nothing more can be required than logical 
inference. Mathematical forms pass current as the 
equivalent of mathematical certainty. The unwary 
admirer is satisfied with the completeness and sym- 
metry of the plan of his house, unmindful of the need 
of examining the firmness of the foundation and the 
soundness of the materials. The system-maker, like 
the conqueror, long dazzles and overawes the world; 
but when their sway is past, the vulgar herd, unable 
to measure their astonishing faculties, take revenge 
by trampling on fallen greatness." Bacon showed 
his wisdom in his reflections on this subject, when 
he said that " Method, carrying a show of total and 
perfect knowledge, hath a tendency to generate ac- 
quiescence." 

The main value of Descartes' physical doctrines 
consisted in their being arrived at in a way incon- 



1° Mackintosh, Dissertaiim on Ethical Science. 



FROM BACON TO NEWTON. 1 65 

sistent Ayith his own professed method, namely, by a 
reference to ohservation. But though he did in reality 
begin from facts, his system was nevertheless a glaring 
example of that error which Bacon had called Anti- 
cipation; that illicit generalization which leaps at once 
from special facts to principles of the widest and 
remotest kind; such, for instance, as the Cartesian 
doctrine, that the world is an absolute plenum, every 
part being full of matter of some kind, and that all 
natural effects depend on the laws of motion. Against 
this fault, to which the human mind is so prone. Bacon 
had lifted his warning voice in vain, so far as the 
Cartesians were concerned; as indeed, to this day, one 
theorist after another pursues his course, and turns 
a deaf ear to the Yerulamian injunctions; perhaps 
even complacently boasts that he founds his theory 
upon observation; and forgets that there are, as the 
aphorism of the Novum Org anon declares, two ways 
by which this may be done ; — the one hitherto in 
use and suggested by our common tendencies, but 
barren and worthless ; the other almost untried, to 
be pursued only with effort and self-denial, but alone 
capable of producing true knowledge. 

3. Gassendi. — Thus the lessons which Bacon 
taught were far from being generally accepted and 
applied at first. The amount of the influence of these 
two men. Bacon and Descartes, upon their age, has 
often been a subject of discussion. The fortunes of 
the Cartesian school have been in some measure traced 
in the Histoiy of Science. But I may mention the 
notice taken of these two philosophers by Gassendi, 
a contemporary and countryman of Descartes. Gas- 
sendi, as I have elsewhere stated ^^, was associated with 
Descartes in public opinion, as an opponent of the 
Aristotelian dogmatism ; but was not in fact a follower 
or profound admirer of that ^viiter. In a Treatise 
on Logic, Gassendi gives an account of the Logic of 
various sects and authors; treating, in order, of the 



11 Eist Ind. Sc. b. vii. & L 



1 66 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

Logic of Zeno (the Eleatic), of Euclid (the Megarean), 
of Plato, of Aristotle, of the Stoics, of Epicurus, of 
Lullius, of Ramus; and to these he adds the Logic 
of Yerulam, and the Logic of Cartesius. "We must 
not," he says, "on account of the celebrity it has 
obtained, pass over the Organon or Logic of Francis 
Eacon Lord Yerulam, High Chancellor of England, 
whose noble purpose in our time it has been, to make 
an Instauration of the Sciences." He then gives a 
brief account of the Novum Organon, noticing the prin- 
cipal features in its rules, and especially the distinction 
between the vulgar induction which leaps at once from 
particular experiments to the more general axioms, 
and the chastised and gradual induction, which the 
author of the Organon recommends. In his account 
of the Cartesian Logic, he justly observes, that " He 
too imitated Verulam in this, that being about to build 
up a new philosophy from the foundation, he wished 
in the first place to lay aside all prejudice : and 
having then found some solid principle, to make that 
the ground-work of his whole structure. But he pro- 
ceeds by a very different path from that which Yeru- 
lam follows ; for while Yerulam seeks aid from things, 
to perfect the cogitation of the intellect, Cartesius con- 
ceives, that when we have laid aside all knowledge of 
things, there is, in our thoughts alone, such a resource, 
that the intellect may by its own power arrive at a per- 
fect knowledge of all, even the most abstruse things." 

The writings of Descartes have been most admired, 
and his method most commended, by those authors 
who have employed themselves upon metaphysical ra- 
ther than physical subjects of inquiry. Perhaps we 
might say that, in reference to such subjects, this 
method is not so vicious as at first, when contrasted 
with the Baconian induction, it seems to be: for it 
might be urged that the thoughts from which Descartes 
begins his reasonings are, in reality, experiments of the 
kind which the subject requires us to consider : each 
such thought is a fact in the intellectual world; and 
of such facts, the metaphysician seeks to discover the 
laws. I shall not here examine the validity of this 



FROM BACON TO NEWTOM. 1 6/ 

plea; but sliall turn to the consideration of the actual 
progress of physical science, and its effect on men's 
minds. 

4. Actual progress in Science. — The practical dis- 
coverers were indeed very active and very successful 
during the seventeenth century, which opened with 
Bacon's survey and exhortations. The laws of nature, 
of which men had begun to obtain a glimpse in the 
preceding century, were investigated with zeal and 
sagacity, and the consequence was that the foundations 
of most of the modern physical sciences were laid. 

That mode of research by experiment and observation, ,, '^ 

which had, a little time ago, been a strange, and to j jj 

many, an unwelcome innovation, was now become the ilj 

habitual course of philosophers. The revolution from Ifl 

the philosophy of tradition to the j)hilosophy of ex- 
perience was completed. The great discoveries of Kep- 
ler belonged to the preceding century. They are not, 
I believe, noticed, either by Bacon or by Descartes; 
but they gave a strong impulse to astronomical and 
mechanical speculators, by showiug the necessity of a 
sound science of motion. Such a science Galileo had 
already begun to construct. At the time of which I 
speak, his disciples ^^ were still labouring at this task, 
and at other problems which rapidly suggested them- 
selves. They had already convinced themselves that 
air had weight; in 1643 Torricelli proved this practi- 
cally by the invention of the Barometer; in 1647 Pas- 
cal proved it still further by sending the Barometer to 
the top of a mountain. Pascal and Boyle brought into 
clear view the fundamental laws of fluid equilibrium ; 
Boyle and Mariotte determined the law of the com- 
pression of air as reg-ulated by its elasticity. Otto 
Guericke invented the air-pump, and by his " Madge- 
burg Experiments" on a vacuum, illustrated still fur- 
ther the effects of the air. Guericke pursued what 
Gilbert had begun, the observation of electrical pheno- 



12 Castelli, Torricelli, Viviani, Baliani, Gassendi, Mersenne, Borelli, Ca- 
valleri 



1 68 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

menaj and tliese two physicists made an impoi-tant 
step, by detecting repulsion as well as attraction in 
tliese phenomena. Gilbert had already laid the founda- 
tions of the science of Magnetism. The law of refrac- 
tion, at which Kepler had laboured in vain, was, as 
we have seen, discovered by Snell (about 162 1), and 
published by Descartes. Mersenne had discovered 
some of the more important parts of the theory of 
Harmonics. In sciences of a different kind, the same 
movement was visible. Chemical doctrines tended to 
assume a proper degree of generality, when Sylvius in 
1679 taught the opposition of acid and alkali, and 
Stahl, soon after, the phlogistic theory of combustion. 
Steno had remarked the most important law of crystal- 
lography in 1669, that the angles of the same kind of 
crystals are always equal. In the sciences of classifi- 
cation, about 1680, Ray and Morison in England 
resumed the attempt to form a systematic botany, 
which had been interrupted for a hundred years, from 
the time of the memorable essay of Csesalpinus. The 
grand discovery of the circulation of the blood by 
Harvey about 1619, was followed in 1651 by Pecquet's 
discovery of the course of the chyle. There could now 
no longer be any question whether science was pro- 
gressive, or whether observation could lead to new 
truths. 

Among these cultivators of science, such sentiments 
as have been already quoted became very familiar; — 
that knowledge is to be sought from nature herself by 
observation and experiment; — that in such matters 
tradition is of no force when opposed to experience, 
and that mere reasonings without facts cannot lead to 
solid knowledge. But I do not know that we find in 
these writers any more special rules of induction and 
scientific research which have since been confirmed 
and universally adopted. Perhaps too, as was natural 
in so great a revolution, the writers of this time, espe- 
cially the second-rate ones, were somewhat too prone 
to disparage the labours and talents of Aristotle and 
the ancients in general, and to overlook the ideal 
element of our knowledge, in their zealous study of 



FROM BACON TO NEWTON. 1 69 

phenomena. They urged, sometimes in an exagge- 
rated manner, the superiority of modern times in all 
that regards science, and the supreme and sole im- 
portance of facts in scientific investigations. There 
prevailed among them also a lofty and dignified tone 
of speaking of the condition and prospects of science, 
such as we are accustomed to admire in the Yerula- 
mian writings; for this, in a less degree, is epidemic 
among those who a little after his time speak of the 
new philosophy. 

5. Otto Gueriche, &c. — I need not illustrate these 
characteristics at any great length. I may as an ex- 
ample notice Otto Guericke's Preface to his Experi- 
menta Magdehurgica (1670). He quotes a passage 
from Kircher's Treatise on the Magnetic Art, in which 
the author says, "Hence it appears how all philosophy, 
except it be supported by experiments, is empty, fal- 
lacious, and useless ; what monstrosities philosophers, 
in other respects of the highest and subtlest genius, 
may produce in philosophy by neglecting experiment. 
Thus Experience alone is the Dissolver of Doubts, the 
Reconciler of Difficulties, the sole ]Mistress of Truth, 
who holds a torch before us in obscurity, unties our 
knots, teaches us the true causes of things." Guericke 
himself reiterates the same remark, adding that " phi- 
losophers, insisting upon their own thoughts and argu- 
ments merely, cannot come to any sound conclusion 
respecting the natural constitution of the world." Nor 
were the Cartesians slow in taking up the same train 
of reflection. Thus Gilbert Clark who, in 1660, pub- 
lished^^ a defence of Descartes' doctrine of a plenum 
in the universe, speaks in a tone which reminds us 
of Bacon, and indeed was very probably caught from 
him : "Natural philosophy formerly consisted entirely 
of loose and most doubtful controversies, carried on in 
high-sounding words, fit rather to delude than to in- 
struct men. But at last (by the favour of the Deity) 



13 Be Plenitudine Mundi, in qua defenditur Cartesiana Philosophia contra 
aenteniias Frandsci Baconi, Th. Hobbii et Sethi Wardi. 



170 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

there shone forth some more divine intellects, who 
taking as their counsellors reason and experience to- 
gether, exhibited a new method of philosophizing. 
Hence has been conceived a strong hope that philoso- 
phers may embrace, not a shadow or empty image of 
Truth, but Truth herself: and that Physiology (Physics) 
scattering these controversies to the winds, will con- 
tract an alliance with Mathematics. Yet this is hardly 
the work of one age ; still less of one man. Yet let 
not the mind despond, or doubt not that, one party of 
investigators after another following the same method 
of philosophizing, at last, under good auguries, the 
mysteries of nature being daily unlocked as far as 
human feebleness will allow. Truth may at last appear 
in full, and these nuptial torches may be lighted." 

As another instance of the same kind, I may quote 
the preface to the First volume of the Transactions 
of the Academy of Sciences at Paris: "It is only 
since the present century," says the writer, "that we 
can reckon the revival of Mathematics and Physics. 
M. Descartes and other great men have laboured at 
this work with so much success, that in this depart- 
ment of literature, the whole face of things has been 
changed. Men have quitted a sterile system of physics, 
which for several generations had been always at the 
same point; the reign of words and terms is passed; 
men will have things ; they establish principles which 
they understand, they follow those principles; and 
thus they make progress. Authority has ceased to 
have more weight than Reason : that which was re- 
ceived without contradiction because it had been long 
received, is now examined, and often rejected: and 
philosophers have made it their business to consult, 
respecting natural things, Nature herself rather than 
the Ancients." These had now become the common- 
places of those who spoke concerning the course and 
method of the Sciences. 

6. Hooke. — In England, as might be expected, the 
influence of Francis Bacon was more directly visible. 
We find many writers, about this time, repeating the 
truths which Bacon had proclaimed, and in almost 



FROM BACON TO NEWTON. I7I 

every case sliowing tlie same imperfections in their 
views wliich we have noticed in him. We may take 
as an example of this Hooke's Essay, entitled "A 
General Scheme or Idea of the present state of Natural 
Philosophy, and how its defects may be remedied by a 
Methodical proceeding in the making Experiments and 
collecting Observations ; whereby to compile a ISTatnral 
History as a solid basis for the superstructure of 
true Philosophy." This Essay may be looked upon as 
an attempt to adapt the Novum Organon to the age 
which succeeded its publication. We have in this 
imitation, as in the original, an enumeration of vari- 
ous mistakes and impediments which had in preceding 
times prevented the progress of knowledge; exhorta- 
tions to experiment and observation as the only solid 
basis of Science ; very ingenious suggestions of trains of 
inquiry, and modes of pursuing them ; and a promise 
of obtaining scientific truths when facts have been 
duly accumulated. This last part of his scheme the 
author calls a Fhilosoiihical Algebra; and he appears 
to have imagined that it might answer the purpose of 
finding unknown causes from known facts, by means 
of certain regular processes, in the same manner as 
Common Algebra finds unknown from known quanti- 
ties. But this part of the plan appears to have re- 
mained unexecuted. The suggestion of such a method 
was a result of the Baconian notion that invention 
in a discoverer might be dispensed with. We find 
Hooke adopting the phrases in which this notion is 
implied : thus he speaks of the understanding as "being 
very prone to run into the affirmative way of judging, 
and wanting patience to follow and prosecute the nega- 
tive way of inquiry, by rejection of disagreeing natures." 
And he follows Bacon also in the error of attempting 
at once to obtain from the facts the discovery of a 
*' nature," instead of investigating first the measures 
and the laws of phenomena. I return to more general 
notices of the course of men's thoughts on this subject. 
7. Royal Society. — Those who associated them- 
selves together for the prosecution of science quoted 
Bacon as their leader, and exulted in the progress 



172 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

made by the philosophy wliich proceeded upon his 
principles. Thus in Oldenburg's Dedication of the 
Transactions of the Royal Society of London for 1670, 
to Hobert Boyle, he says; "I am informed by such 
as well remember the best and worst days of the 
famous Lord Bacon, that though he wrote his Ad- 
vancement of Learning and his Instauratio Magna in 
the time of his greatest power, yet his greatest re- 
putation rebounded first from the most intelligent 
foreigners in many parts of Christendom:" and after 
speaking of his practical talents and his public em- 
ployments, he adds, " much more justly still may we 
wonder how, without any great skill in Chemistry, 
without much pretence to the Mathematics or Me- 
chanics, without optic aids or other engines of late 
invention, he should so much transcend the pliiloso- 
phers then living, in judicious and clear instructions, 
in so many useful observations and discoveries, I think 
I may say beyond the records of many ages." And 
in the end of the Preface to the same volume, lie 
speaks with great exultation of the advance of science 
all over Europe, referring undoubtedly to facts then 
familiar. "And now let envy snarl, it cannot stop 
the wheels of active philosophy, in no part of the 
known world; — not in France, either in Paris or in 
Caen : — not in Italy, either in Pome, Naples, Milan, 
Florence, Venice, Bononia or Padua; — in none of the 
Universities either on this or on that side of the seas, 
Madrid and Lisbon, all the best spirits in Spain and 
Portugal, and the spacious and remote dominions to 
them belonging; — the Imperial Court and the Princes 
of Germany; the Northern Kings and their best lumi- 
naries; and even the frozen Muscovite and Russian 
have all taken the operative ferment: and it works 
high and prevails every way, to the encouragement 
of all sincere lovers of knowledge and virtue." 

Again, in the Preface for 1672, he pursues the 
same thought into detail : " We must grant that in 
the last age, when operative philosophy began to re- 
cover ground, and to tread on the heels of triumphant 
Philology; emergent adventures and great successes 



FROil BACON TO XEWTON. 1 73 

were encountered by dangerous oppositions and strong 
obstructions. Galilseus and others in Italy suffered 
extremities for their celestial discoveries; and here in 
England Sir Walter Kaleigh, when he was in his 
greatest lustre, was notoriously slandered to have 
erected a school of atheism, because he gave counte- 
nance to chemistiy, to practical arts, and to cuiious 
mechanical operations, and designed to form the best 
of them into a college. And Queen Elizabeth's Gilbert 
was a long time esteemed extravagant for his magnet- 
isms ; and Harvey for his diligent researches in pur- 
suance of the circulation of the blood. But when our 
renowned Lord Bacon had demonstrated the methods 
for a perfect restoration of all parts of real knowledge ; 
and the generous and philosophical Peireskius had, 
soon after, agitated in all parts to redeem the most 
instructive antiquities, and to excite experimental 
essays and fresh discoveries; the success became on a 
sudden stupendous; and effective philosophy began to 
sparkle, and even to flow into beams of shining light 
all over the world." 

The formation of the Boyal Society of London and 
of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, from which pro- 
ceeded the declamations just quoted, were among many 
indications, belonging to this period, of the importance 
which states as well as individuals had by this time 
begun to attach to the cultivation of science. The 
English Society was established almost immediately 
when the restoration of the monarchy appeared to 
give a promise of tranquillity to the nation (in 1660), 
and the French Academy very soon afterwards (in 
1666). These measures were very soon followed by 
the establishment of the Observatories of Paris and 
Greenwich (in 1667 and 1675); which may be con- 
sidered to be a kind of public recognition of the astro- 
nomy of observation, as an object on which it was the 
advantage and the duty of nations to bestow their 
wealth. 

8. Bacon'' s New Atalantis. — When philosophers 
had their attention turned to the boundless prospect of 
increase to the knowledge and powers and pleasures of 



174 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT, 

man which, the cultivation of experimental philosophy 
seemed to promise, it was natural that they should 
think of devising institutions and associations by which 
such benefits might be secured. Bacon had drawn a 
picture of a society organized with a view to such pur- 
pose, in his fiction of the " New Atalantis." The 
imaginary teacher who explains this institution to the 
inquiring traveller, describes it by the name of Solo- 
mon^ s House; and says^*, "The end of our founda- 
tion is the knowledge of causes and secret motions of 
things; and the enlarging the bounds of the human 
empire to effecting of things possible." And, as parts 
of this House, he describes caves and wells, chambers 
and towers, baths and gardens, parks and pools, dis- 
pensatories and furnaces, and many other contrivances, 
provided for the purpose of making experiments of 
many kinds. He describes also the various employ- 
- ments of the Fellows of this College, who take a share 
in its researches. There are merchants of light, who 
bring books and inventions from foreign countries ; 
depredators, who gather the experiments which exist 
in books ; mystery -men, who collect the experiments of 
the mechanical arts; pioneers or miners, who invent 
new experiments ; and compilers, " who draw the ex- 
periments of the former into titles and tables, to give 
the better light for the drawing of observations and 
axioms out of them." There are also dowry-men or 
benefactors, that cast about how to draw out of the 
experiments of their fellows things of use and prac- 
tice for man's life ; lamps, that direct new experiments 
of a more penetrating light than the former; in- 
OGulators, that execute the experiments so directed. 
Finally, there are the interpreters of nature, that raise 
the former discoveries by experiments into greater ob- 
servations (that is, more general truths), axioms and 
aphorisms. Upon this scheme we may remark, that 
fictitious as it undisguisedly is, it still serves to exhibit 
very clearly some of the main features of the author's 



!■* Bacon's Worlts. voL iL iii. 



FROM BACON TO NEWTON. 1/5 

philosopliy : — namely, His steady view of the necessity 
of ascending from facts to the most general truths by 
several stages ; — an exaggerated opinion of the aid that 
could be derived in such a task from technical sepa- 
ration of the phenomena and a distribution of them 
into tables; — a belief, probably incorrect, that the 
offices of experimenter and interpreter may be entirely 
separated, and pursued by different persons with a 
certainty of obtaining success ! — and a strong determi- 
nation to make knowledge constantly subservient to 
the uses of life. 

9. Cowley. — Another project of the same kind, 
less ambitious but apparently more directed to prac- 
tice, was published, a little later (1657) by another 
eminent man of letters in this country. I speak of 
Cowley's " Proposition for the Advancement of Experi- 
mental Philosophy." He suggests that a College should 
be established at a short distance from London, en- 
dowed with a revenue of four thousand pounds, and 
consisting of twenty professors with other members. 
The objects of the labours of these professors he de- 
scribes to be, first, to examine all knowledge of nature 
delivered to us from former ages and to pronounce it 
sound or worthless ; second, to recover the lost inven- 
tions of the ancients ; third, to improve all arts that 
we now have; lastly, to discover others that we yet 
have not. In this proposal we cannot help marking 
the visible declension from Bacon's more philosophical 
view. For we have here only a very vague indication 
of improving old arts and discovering new, instead of 
the two clear Yerulamian antitheses, Experiments and 
Axioms deduced from them, on the one hand, and on 
the other an ascent to general Laws, and a derivation, 
from these, of Arts for daily use. Moreover the pro- 
minent place which Cowley has assigned to the verify- 
ing the knowledge of former ages and recovering "the 
lost inventions and drowned lands of the ancients," 
implies a disposition to think too highly of traditionary 
knowledge; a weakness which Bacon's scheme shows 
Jiim to have fully overcome. And thus it has been up 
to the present day, that with all Bacon's mistakes, in 



176 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

the philosopliy of scientific method few have come up 
to him, and perhaps none have gone beyond him. 

Cowley exerted himself to do justice to the new 
philosophy in verse as well as prose, and his Poem to 
the E-oyal Society expresses in a very noble manner 
those views of the history and prospects of philosophy 
which prevailed among the men by whom the Royal 
Society was founded. The fertility and ingenuity of 
comparison which characterize Cowley's poetry are 
well known ; and these qualities are in this instance 
largely employed for the embellishment of his subject. 
Many of the comparisons which he exhibits are apt 
and striking. Philosophy is a ward whose estate (hu- 
man knowledge) is, in his nonage, kept from him by 
his guardians and tutors ; (a case which the ancient 
rhetoricians were fond of taking as a subject of decla- 
mation;) and these ■\vi'ong-doers retain him in unjust 
tutelage and constraint for their own purposes j until 

Bacon at last, a migMy man, arose, 
(Whom a wise King, and Nature, chose 
Lord Chancellor of both their laws,) 
And boldly undertook the injured pupil's cause. 

Again, Bacon is one who breaks a scarecrow Priapus 
which stands in the garden of knowledge. Again, 
Bacon is one who, instead of a picture of painted 
grapes^ gives us real grapes from which we press " the 
thirsty soul's refreshing Avine." Again, Bacon is like 
Moses, who led the Hebrews forth jfrom the barren 
wilderness, and ascended Pisgah; — 

Did on the very border stand 

Of the blest promised land. 
And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit 
Saw it himself and showed us it. 

The poet however adds, that Bacon discovered, but 
did not conquer this new world; and that the men 
whom he addresses must subdue these regions. These 
"champions" are then ingeniously compared to Gi- 
deon's band: 

Their old and empty pitchers first they brake, 
And with their hands then lifted up the light. 



FROM BACON TO IsEWTOX. 1 77 

There were still at this time some who sneered at or 
condemned the new philosophy ; but the tide of popular 
opinion was soon strongly in its favour. I have else- 
where^^ noticed a pasquinade of the poet Boileau in 
1682, directed against the Aristotelians. At this time, 
and indeed for long afterwards, the philosophers of 
France were Cartesians. The English men of science, 
although partially and for a time they acceiDted some 
of Descartes' opinions, for the most j)art carried on 
the reform independently, and in pursuance of their 
own views. And they very soon found a much greater 
leader than Descartes to place at their head, and to 
take as their authority, so far as they aclaiowledged 
authority, in their speculations. I speak of Newton, 
whose influence upon the philosophy of science I must 
now consider. 

Barrow. — I will, howevei^, first mention one other 
writer who may, in more than one way, be regarded 
as the predecessor of Newton. I speak of Isaac Bar- 
row, whom Newton succeeded as Professor of Mathe- 
matics in the University of Cambridge, and who in his 
mathematical speculations approached very near to 
Newton's method of Fluxions. He afterwards (in 1673) 
became Master of Trinity College, which office he held 
till his death in 1677. But the passages which I 
shall quote belong to an earlier period, (when Barrow 
was about 22 years old,) and may be regarded as ex- 
pressions of the opinions which were then current 
among active-minded and studious young men. They 
manifest a complete familiarity with the writings both 
of Bacon and of Descartes, and a very just appreciation 
of both. The discourse of which I speak is an aca- 
demical exercise delivered in 1652, on the thesis Car- 
tesiana hyj)othesis hoMcl satisfadt prcecipuis naturae 
pkcenomenis. By the " Cartesian hypothesis," he does 
not mean the hypothesis that the planets are moved 
by vortices of etherial matter : I believe that this Car- 
tesian tenet never had any disciples in England; it 



1* nist. Ind. Sc. b. vii c. L 



IH 



178 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

certainly never took any hold of Cambridge. By the 
Cartesian hypothesis, Barrow means the doctrine that 
all the phenomena of nature can be accounted for by 
matter and motion ; and allowing that the motions of 
the planets are to be so accounted for, (which is New- 
tonian as well as Cartesian doctrine,) he denies that 
the Cartesian hypothesis accounts for " the generations, 
properties, and specific operations of animals, plants, 
minerals, stones, and other natural bodies," in doing 
which he shows a sound philosophical judgment. But 
among the parts of this discourse most bearing on our 
present purpose are those where he mentions Bacon, 
"j^ gainst Cartesius," he says, "I pit the chy mists and 
others, but especially as the foremost champion of this 
battle, our Yerulam, a man of great name and of great 
judgment, who condemned this philosophy before it 
was born." "He," adds Barrow, "several times in his 
Organon, warned men against all hypotheses of this 
kind, and noticed beforehand that there was not much 
to be expected from those principles which are brought 
into being by violent efforts of argumentation from the 
brains of particular men : for that, as upon the pheno- 
mena of the stars, various constructions of the heavens 
may be devised, so also upon the phenomena of the 
Universe, still more dogmas may be founded and con- 
structed; and yet all such are mere inventions: and as 
many philosophies of this kind as are or shall be ex- 
tant, so many fictitious and theatrical worlds are made." 
The reference is doubtless to Aphorism lxii. of the first 
Book of the Novum Organon, in which Bacon is 
speaking of his " Idols of the Theatre." After making 
the remark which Barrow has adopted, Bacon adds, 
" Such theatrical fables have also this in common with 
those of dramatic poets, that the dramatic story is 
more regular and elegant than true histories are, and 
is made so as to be agreeable." Barrow, having this 
in his mind, goes on to say: "And though Cartesius 
has dressed up the stage of his theatre more prettily 
than any other person, and made his drama more like 
history, still he is not exempt from the like censure." 
And he then refers to Cartesius' s own declaration, that 



FEOM BACON TO NEWTON. 1 79 

lie did not learn his system from things themselves, 
but tried to impose his own laws upon things; thus in- 
verting the order of true philosophy. 

Other parts of Bacon's work to which Barrow refers 
are those where he speaks of the Form, or Formal 
Cause of a body, and says that in comparison with 
that, the Efficient Cause and the Material Cause are 
things unimportant and superficial, and contribute 
little to true and active science ^^ And again, his 
classification of the various kinds of motions^', — the 
motus libertatis, motus nexus, motus continuitatis, 
motus ad lucrum, fugae, unionis, congregationis ; and 
the explanation of electrical attraction (about which 
Gilbert and others had written) as motus ad lucrum. 

These passages show that Barrow had read the 
NovuTTb Organon in a careful and intelligent manner, 
and presumed his Cambridge hearers to be acquainted 
with the work. Nor is his judgment of Descartes 
less wise and philosophical. He rejects, as we have 
seen, his system as a true scheme of the universe, and 
condemns altogether his a priori mode of philosophiz- 
ing ; but this does not prevent his accepting Descartes' 
real discoveries, and admiiing the boldness and vigour 
of his attempts to reform philosophy. There is, in 
Barrow's works, academic verse, as well as prose, on 
the subject of the Cartesian hypothesis. In this, Des- 
cartes himself is highly praised, though his doctrines 
are very partially accepted. The writer says : " Par- 
don us, great Cartesius, if the Muse resists you. Par- 
don ! "We follow you. Inquiring Spirit that you are, 
while we reject your system. As you have taught us 
free thought, and broken down the rule of tyranny, 
we undauntedly speculate, even in opposition to you." 

Descartes is even yet spoken of, especially by French 
writers, as the person who first asserted and estab- 
lished the freedom of inquiry which is the boast of 
modern philosophy; but this is said with reference to 
metaphysics, not to physics. In physical philosophy, 



16 Nov. Org. lib. ii. Aph. 2. 17 lb, lib. ii. Aph. 45. 

N2 



II 



l80 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

tliougli lie caiiglit liold of some of tlie discoveries 
which were then coming into view, the method in 
which he reasoned or professed to reason was alto- 
gether vicious; and was, as I have already said, an 
attempt to undo what the reformers, both theoretical 
and practical, had been doing : — to discredit the philo- 
sophy of experience, and to restore the reign of d, priori 
systems. 

It was, however, now, too late to make any such 
attempt ; and nothing came of it to interrupt the pro- 
gress of a better philosophy of discovery. 



CHAPTEE XYIII. 
Newton. 



I. "OOLD and extensive as liad been tlie antici- 
XJ pations of those wliose minds were excited 
by the promise of the new philosophy, the discoveries 
of Newton respecting the mechanics of the universe, 
brought into view truths more general and profound 
than those earlier philosophers had hoped or imagined. 
With these vast accessions to human knowledge, men's 
thoughts were again set in action; and philosophers 
made earnest and various attempts to draw, from these 
extraordinary advances in science, the true moral with 
regard to the conduct and limits of the human under- 
standing. They not only endeavoured to verify and 
illustrate, by these new portions of science, what had 
recently been taught concerning the methods of ob- 
taining sound knowledge; but they were also led to 
speculate concerning many new and more interesting 
questions relating to this subject. They saw, for the 
first time, or at least far more clearly than before, the 
distinction between the inquiry into the laws, and into 
the causes of phenomena. They were tempted to ask, 
how far the discovery of causes could be carried; and 
whether it would soon reach, or clearly point to, the 
ultimate cause. They were driven to consider whether 
the properties which they discovered were essential 
properties of all matter, necessarily and primarily in- 
volved in its essence, though revealed to us at a late 
period by their derivative effects. These questions 
even now agitate the thoughts of speculative men. 
Some of them have already, in this work, been dis- 
cussed, or arranged in the places which our view of the 
philosophy of these subjects assigns to them. But we 



1 82 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

must here notice them as they occurred to Newton 
himself and his immediate followers. 

2. The general Baconian notion of the method of 
philosophizing, — that it consists in ascending from phe- 
nomena, through various stages of generalization, to 
truths of the highest order, — received, in Newton's dis- 
covery of the universal mutual gravitation of every 
particle of matter, that pointed actual exemplification, 
for want of which it had hitherto been almost over- 
looked, or at least very vaguely understood. That 
great truth, and the steps by which it was established, 
afibrd, even now, by far the best example of the suc- 
cessive ascent, from one scientific truth to another, — 
of the repeated transition from less to more general pro- 
positions, — which we can yet produce j as may be seen 
in the Table which exhibits the relation of these steps 
in Book ii. of the Novum Organon Renovatum. Newton 
himself did not fail to recognize this feature in the 
truths which he exhibited. Thus he says^, "By the 
way of Analysis we proceed from compounds to ingre- 
dients, as from motions to the forces producing them ; 
and in general, from efiects to their causes, and from 
particular causes to more general ones, till the argument 
ends in the most general." And in like manner in ano- 
ther Query*: "The main business of natural philoso- 
phy is to argue from phenomena without feigning hypo- 
theses, and to deduce causes from efiects, till we come 
to the First Cause, which is certainly not mechanical." 

3. Newton appears to have had a horror of the 
term hypothesis, which probably arose from his ac- 
quaintance with the rash and illicit general assump- 
tions of Descartes. Thus in the passage just quoted, 
after declaring that gr^fvity must have some other 
cause than matter, he says, *' Later philosophers banish 
the consideration of such a cause out of Natural Phi- 
losophy, feigning hypotheses for explaining all things 
mechanically, and referring other causes to meta- 
physics." In the celebrated Scholium at the end of 



1 Optics, qu. 31, near the end. 2 Qu. 28. 



NEWTON. 183 

the Principia lie says, "Whatever is not deduced 
from the phenomena, is to be termed hypothesis ; and 
hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or oc- 
cult causes, or mechanical, have no place in experi- 
mental philosophy. In this philosophy, propositions 
are deduced from phenomena, and rendered general by 
induction." And in another place, he arrests the 
course of his own suggestions, saying, " Yerum hypo- 
theses non fingo." I have already attempted to show 
that this is, in reality, a superstitious and self-destruc- 
tive spirit of speculation. Some hypotheses are neces- 
sary, in order to connect the facts which are observed; 
some new principle of unity must be applied to the 
phenomena, before induction can be attempted. What 
is requisite is, that the hypothesis should be close to 
the facts, and not connected with them by the interme- 
diation of other arbitrary and untried facts ; and that 
the philosopher should be ready to resign it as soon as 
the facts refuse to confii'm it. We have seen in the 
History^, that it was by such a use of hypotheses, that 
both Newton himself, and Kepler, on whose discoveries 
those of Newton were based, made their discoveries. 
The suppositions of a force tending to the sun and vary- 
ing inversely as the square of the distance; of a mutual 
force between all the bodies of the solar system ; of the 
force of each body arising from the attraction of all its 
parts; not to mention others, also propounded by 
Newton, — were all hypotheses before they were veri- 
fied as theories. It is related that when Newton was 
asked how it was that he saw into the laws of nature 
so much further than other men, he replied, that if it 
were so, it resulted from his keeping his thoughts 
steadily occupied upon the subject which was to be 
thus penetrated. But what is this occupation of the 
thoughts, if it be not the process of keeping the phe- 
nomena clearly in view, and trying, one after another, 
all the plausible hypotheses which seem likely to con- 
nect them, till at last the true law is discovered? Hy- 
potheses so used are a necessary element of discovery. 



Hist. Ind. Sc. b. v, and b. vii 



184 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

4. With regard to tlie details of tlie process of 
discovery, Newton lias given ns some of Ms views, 
wliich are well worthy of notice, on account of their 
coming from him ; and which are real additions to the 
philosophy of this subject. He speaks repeatedly of 
the analysis and synthesis of observed facts ; and thus 
marks certain steps in scientific research, very import- 
ant, and not, I think, clearly pointed out by his prede- 
cessors. Thus he says^, "As in Mathematics, so in 
Natural Philosophy, the investigation of difficult things 
by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the 
method of composition. This analysis consists in mak- 
ing experiments and observations, and in drawing 
general conclusions from them by induction, and ad- 
mitting of no objections against the conclusions, but 
such as are taken from experiments or other certain 
truths. And although the arguing from experiments 
and observations by induction be no demonstration of 
general conclusions ; yet it is the best way of arguing 
which the nature of things admits of, and may be look- 
ed upon as so much the stronger, by how much the 
induction is more general." And he then observes, as 
we have quoted above, that by this way of analysis we 
proceed from compounds to ingredients, from motions 
to forces, from efiects to causes, and from less to more 
general causes. The analysis here spoken of includes 
the steps which in our Novum Organon we call the 
decomposition of facts, the exact observation and mea- 
st(,re'nient of the phenomena, and the colligation of facts j 
the necessary intermediate step, the selection and ex2:)li- 
cation of the appropriate conception, being passed over 
by Newton, in the fear of seeming to encourage the 
fabrication of hypotheses. The synthesis of which New- 
ton here speaks consists of those steps of deductive rea- 
soning, proceeding from the conception once assumed, 
which are requisite for the comparison of its conse- 
quences with the observed facts. This, his statement 
of the process of research, is, as far as it goes, perfectly 
exact. 



Optics, qu. 31, 



NEWTON. 185 

5. In speaking of Newton's precepts on the subject, 
we are naturally led to the celebrated " Rules of Phi- 
losophizing," inserted in the second edition of the Prin- 
cipia. These rules have generally been quoted and 
commented on with an almost unquestioning reverence. 
Such Rules, coming from such an authority, cannot 
fail to be highly interesting to us ; but at the same 
time, we cannot here evade the necessity of scrutiniz- 
ing their truth and value, according to the principles 
which our survey of this subject has brought into view. 
The Rules stand at the beginning of that part of the 
Principia (the Third Book) in which he infers the mu- 
tual gravitation of the sun, moon, planets, and all parts 
of each. They are as follows : 

" Rule I. We are not to admit other causes of na- 
tural things than such as both are true, and suffice for 
explaining their phenomena. 

"Rule II. Natural effects of the same kind are 
to be referred to the same causes, as far as can be 
done. 

" Rule III. The qualities of bodies which cannot 
be increased or diminished in intensity, and which be- 
long to all bodies in which we can institute experi- 
ments, are to be held for qualities of all bodies what- 
ever. 

" Rule TV. In experimental philosophy, proposi- 
tions collected from phenomena by induction, are to 
be held as true either accurately or approximately, not- 
withstanding contrary hypotheses ; till other pheno- 
mena occur by which they may be rendered either 
more accurate or liable to exception." 

In considering these Rules, we cannot help remark- 
ing, in the first place, that they are constructed with 
an intentional adaptation to the case with which New- 
ton has to deal, — the induction of Universal Gravita- 
tion ; and are intended to protect the reasonings before 
which they stand. Thus the first Rule is designed to 
strengthen the inference of gravitation from the celes- 
tial phenomena, by describing it as a vera causa, a true 
cause ; the second Rule countenances the doctrine that 
the planetary motions are governed by mechanical 



1 86 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

forces, as terrestrial motions are; the third rule ap- 
pears intended to justify the assertion of gravitation, 
as a universal quality of bodies; and the fourth con- 
tains, along with a general declaration of the authority 
of induction, the author's usual protest against hypo- 
theses, levelled at the Cartesian hypotheses especially. 

6. Of the First Rule. — We, however, must consi- 
der these Rules in their general application, in which 
point of view they have often been referred to, and 
have had very great authority allowed them. One of 
the points which has been most discussed, is that 
maxim which requires that the causes of phenomena 
which we assign should be true causes, verce causae. 
Of course this does not mean that they should be the 
true or right cause; for although it is the philosopher's 
aim to discover such causes, he would be little aided 
in his search of truth, by being told that it is truth 
which he is to seek. The rule has generally been un- 
derstood to prescribe that in attempting to account for 
any class of phenomena, we must assume such causes 
only, as from other considerations^ we know to exist. 
Thus gravity, which was employed in explaining the 
motions of the moon and planets, was already known 
to exist and operate at the earth's surface. 

Now the Rule thus interpreted is, I conceive, an 
injurious limitation of the field of induction. For it 
forbids us to look for a cause, except among the causes 
with which we are already familiar. But if we follow 
this rule, how shall we ever become acquainted with 
any new cause % Or how do we know that the pheno- 
mena which we contemplate do really arise from some 
cause which we already truly know % If they do not, 
must we still insist upon making them depend upon 
some of our known causes ; or must we abandon the 
study of them altogether? Must we, for example, 
resolve to refer the action of radiant heat to the air, 
rather than to any peculiar fluid or ether, because the 
former is known to exist, the latter is merely assumed 
for the purpose of explanation % But why should we 
do this ? Why should we not endeavour to learn the 
cause from the effects, even if it be not already known 



NEWTON. 187 

to us 1 We can infer causes, whicli are new when we 
first become acquainted with them. Chemical Forces, 
Optical Forces, Yital Forces, are known to us only by 
chemical and optical and vital phenomena; must we, 
therefore, reject their existence or abandon their study? 
They do not conform to the double condition, that they 
shall be sufficient and also real : they are true, only so 
far as they explain the facts, but are they, therefore, 
unintelligible or useless ? Are they not highly im- 
portant and instructive subjects of speculation ? And 
if the gravitation which rules the motions of the pla- 
nets had not existed at the earth's surface; — if it had 
been there masked and concealed by the superior effect 
of magnetism, or some other extraneous force, — might 
not Newton still have inferred, from Kepler's laws, 
the tendency of the planets to the sun ; and from their 
perturbations, their tendency to each other ? His dis- 
coveries would still have been immense, if the cause 
which he assigned had not been a vera causa in the 
sense now contemplated. 

7. But what do we mean by calling gravity a "true 
cause"? How do we learn its reality? Of course, by 
its effects, with which we are familiar; — by the weight 
and fall of bodies about us. These strike even the 
most careless observer. No one can fail to see that all 
bodies which we come in contact with are heavy; — 
that gravity acts in our neighbourhood here upon 
earth. Hence, it may be said, this cause is at any 
rate a true cause, whether it explains the celestial 
phenomena or not. 

But if this be what is meant by a vera causa, it 
appears strange to require that in all cases we should 
find such a one to account for all classes of pheno- 
mena. Is it reasonable or prudent to demand that we 
shall reduce every set of phenomena, however minute, 
or abstruse, or complicated, to causes so obviously ex- 
isting as to strike the most incurious, and to be fami- 
liar among men? How can we expect to find such 
verce causae for the delicate and recondite phenomena 
which an exact and skilful observer detects in chemi- 
cal, or optical, or electrical experiments? The facts 



1 88 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

themselves are too fine for vulgar apprehension; their 
relations, their symmetries, their measures require a 
previous discipline to understand them. How then 
can their causes be found among those agencies with 
which the common unscientific herd of mankind are 
familiar? What likelihood is there that causes held 
for real by such persons, shall explain facts which sue?, 
persons cannot see or cannot understand? 

Again: if we give authority to such a rule, and 
require that the causes by which science explains the 
facts which she notes and measures and analyses, shall 
be causes which men, without any special study, have 
already come to believe in, from the effects which they 
casually see around them, what is this, except to make 
our first rude and unscientific persuasions the criterion 
and test of our most laborious and thoughtful infer- 
ences? What is it, but to give to ignorance and 
thoughtlessness the right of pronouncing upon the con- 
victions of intense study and long-disciplined thought? 
" Electrical atmospheres" surrounding electrized bo- 
dies, were at one time held to be a "true cause" of 
the effects which such bodies produce. These atmo- 
spheres, it was said, are obvious to the senses; we 
feel them like a spider's web on the hands and face, 
-^pinus had to answer such persons, by proving that 
there are no atmospheres, no effluvia, but only repul- 
sion. He thus, for a true cause in the vulgar sense of 
the term, substituted an hypothesis; yet who doubts 
that what he did was an advance in the science of 
electricity? 

8. Perhaps some persons may be disposed to say, 
that Newton's Kule does not enjoin us to take those 
causes only which we clearly know, or suppose we 
know, to be really existing and operating, but only 
causes of such kinds as we have already satisfied our- 
selves do exist in nature. It may be urged that we 
are entitled to infer that the planets are governed in 
their motions by an attractive force, because we find, 
in the bodies immediately subject to observation and 
experiment, that such motions are produced by attrac- 
tive forces, for example, by that of the earth. It may 



NEWTON. 189 

be said that we might on similar groTinds infer forces 
which unite particles of chemical compounds, or deflect 
particles of light, because we see adhesion and deflec- 
tion produced by forces. 

But it is easy to show that the E-ule, thus laxly un- 
derstood, loses all significance. It prohibits no hypo- 
thesis; for all hypotheses suppose causes such as, in 
some case or other, we have seen in action. No one 
would think of explaining phenomena by referring 
them to forces and agencies altogether different from 
any which are known; for on this supposition, how 
could he pretend to reason about the effects of the 
assumed causes, or undertake to prove that they would 
explain the facts? Some close similarity with some 
known kind of cause is requisite, in order that the 
hypothesis may have the appearance of an explana- 
tion. No forces, or virtues, or sympathies, or fluids, 
or ethers, would be excluded by this interpretation of 
verce causes. Least of all, would such an interpreta- 
tion reject the Cartesian hypothesis of vortices; which 
undoubtedly, as I conceive, Newton intended to con- 
demn by his Kule. For that such a case as a whirling 
fluid, carrying bodies round a centre in orbits, does 
occur, is too obvious to require proof Every eddying 
stream, or blast that twirls the dust in the road, ex- 
hibits examples of such action, and would justify the 
assumption of the vortices which carry the planets in 
their courses; as indeed, without doubt, such facts 
suggested the Cartesian explanation of the solar sys- 
tem. The vortices, in this mode of considering the 
subject, are at the least as real a cause of motion as 
gravity itself. 

9. Thus the Kule which enjoins "true causes," is 
nugatory, if we take verm causae in the extended sense 
of any causes of a real hind, and unphilosophical, if we 
understand the term of those very causes which we 
familiarly suppose to exist. But it may be said that 
we are to designate as "true causes," not those which 
are collected in a loose, confused and precarious man- 
ner, by undisciplined minds, from obvious phenomena, 
but those which are justly and rigorously inferred. 



1 90 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

Such a cause, it may be added, gravity is; for tlie 
facts of the' downward pressures and downward mo- 
tions of bodies at the earth's surface lead us, by the 
plainest and strictest induction, to the assertion of 
such a force. Now to this interpretation of the Bule 
there is no objection; but then, it must be observed, 
that on this view, terrestrial gravity is inferred by the 
same process as celestial gravitation; and the cause is 
no more entitled to be called "true," because it is 
obtained from the former, than because it is obtained 
from the latter class of facts. We thus obtain an in- 
telligible and tenable explanation of a vera causa; 
but then, by this explanation, its verity ceases to be 
distinguishable from its other condition, that it " suf- 
fices for the explanation of the phenomena." The 
assumption of universal gravitation accounts for the 
fall of a stone ; it also accounts for the revolutions of 
the Moon or of Saturn; but since both these explana- 
tions are of the same kind, we cannot with justice 
make the one a criterion or condition of the admis- 
sibility of the other. 

lo. But still, the Bule, so understood, is so far 
from being unmeaning or frivolous, that it expresses 
one of the most important tests which can be given of 
a sound physical theory. It is true, the explanation 
of one set of facts may be of the same nature as the 
explanation of the other class : but then, that the 
cause explains hoth classes, gives it a very different 
claim upon our attention and assent from that which 
it would have if it explained one class only. The 
very circumstance that the two explanations coincide, 
is a most weighty presumption in their favour. It is 
the testimony of two witnesses in behalf of the hypo- 
thesis; and in proportion as these two witnesses are 
separate and independent, the conviction produced by 
their agreement is more and more complete. When 
the explanation of two kinds of phenomena, distinct, 
and not apparently connected, leads us to the same 
cause, such a coincidence does give a reality to the 
cause, which it has not while it merely accounts for 
those appearances which suggested the supposition. 



NEWTON. 191 

This coincidence of propositions inferred from sepa- 
rate classes of facts, is exactly wliat we noticed in the 
Novum Org anon Eenovatum (b. ii. c. 5, sect. 3), as 
one of the most decisive characteristics of a true 
theory, under the name of Consilience of Inductions. 

That Newton's First Rule of Philosophizing, so un- 
derstood, authorizes the inferences which he himself 
made, is really the ground on which they are so firmly 
believed by philosophers. Thus when the doctrine of 
a gravity varying inversely as the square of the dis- 
tance from the body, accounted at the same time for 
the relations of times and distances in the planetary 
orbits and for the amount of the moon's deflection 
from the tangent of her orbit, such a doctrine became 
most convincing : or again, when the doctrine of the 
universal gravitation of all parts of matter, which 
explained so admirably the inequalities of the moon's 
motions, also gave a satisfactory account of a pheno- 
menon utterly different, the precession of the equi- 
noxes. And of the same kind is the evidence in 
favour of the undulatory theory of light, when the 
assumption of the length of an undulation, to which 
we are led by the colours of thin plates, is found to be 
identical with that length which explains the pheno- 
mena of diffraction ; or when the hypothesis of trans- 
verse vibrations, suggested by the facts of polarization, 
explains also the laws of double refraction. When 
such a convergence of two trains of induction points 
to the same spot, we can no longer suspect that we 
are wrong. Such an accumulation of proof really 
persuades us that we have to do with a vera causa. 
And if this kind of proof be multiplied ; — if we again 
find other facts of a sort uncontemplated in framing 
our hypothesis, but yet clearly accounted for when we 
have adopted the supposition; — we are still further 
confirmed in our belief ; and by such accumulation of 
proof we may be so far satisfied, as to believe without 
conceiving it possible to doubt. In this case, when 
the validity of the opinion adopted by us has been 
repeatedly confirmed by its sufficiency in unforeseen 
cases, so that all doubt is removed and forgotten, the 



192 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

theoretical cause takes its place among tlie realities of 
the world, and becomes a true cause. 

11. Newton's E-ule then, to avoid mistakes, might 
be thus expressed : That " we may, provisorilj, assume 
such hypothetical cause as will account for any given 
class of natural phenomena; but that when two dif- 
ferent classes of facts lead us to the same hypothesis, 
we may hold it to be a true caused And this Kule 
will rarely or never mislead us. There are no in- 
stances, in which a doctrine recommended in this 
manner has afterwards been discovered to be false. 
There have been hypotheses which have explained 
many phenomena, and kept their ground long, and 
have afterwards been rejected. But these have been 
hypotheses which explained only one class of pheno- 
mena j and their fall took place when another kind of 
facts was examined and brought into conflict with the 
former. Thus the system of eccentrics and epicycles 
accounted for all the observed motions of the planets, 
and was the means of expressing and transmitting all 
astronomical knowledge for two thousand years. But 
then, how was it overthrown? By considering the 
distances as well as motions of the heavenly bodies. 
Here was a second class of facts ; and when the sys- 
tem was adjusted so as to agree with the one class, it 
was at variance with the other. These cycles and 
epicycles could not be true, because they could not be 
made a just representation of the facts. But if the 
measures of distance as well as of position had con- 
spired in pointing out the cycles and epicycles, as the 
paths of the planets, the paths so determined could 
not have been otherwise than their real paths; and 
the epicyclical theory would have been, at least geo- 
metrically, true. 

12. Of the Second Rule. — Newton's Second E-ule 
directs that "natural events of the same hind are to 
be referred to the same causes, so far as can be done." 
Such a precept at first appears to help us but little; 
for all systems, however little solid, profess to conform 
to such a rule. When any theorist undertakes to ex- 
plain a class of facts, he assigns causes which, according 



NEWTON. 193 

to him, will by their natural action, as seen in other 
cases, produce the effects in question. The events 
which he accounts for by his hypothetical cause, are, 
lie holds, of the same kind as those which such a cause 
is known to produce. Kepler, in ascribing the pla- 
netary motions to magnetism, Descartes, in explaining 
them by means of vortices, held that they were re- 
ferring celestial motions to the causes which give rise 
to terrestrial motions of the same kind. The question 
is. Are the effects of the same kind? This once settled, 
there will be no question about the propriety of assign- 
ing them to the same cause. But the difficulty is, to 
determine when events are of the same kind. Are 
the motions of the planets of the sa,me kind with the 
motion of a body moving freely in a curvilinear 
path, or do they not rather resemble the motion of a 
floating body swept round by a whirling current ? The 
Newtonian and the Cartesian answered this question 
differently. How then can we apply this Rule with 
any advantage? 

13. To this we reply, that there is no way of escap- 
ing this uncertainty and ambiguity, but by obtaining 
a clear possession of the ideas which our hypothesis 
involves, and by reasoning rigorously from them. 
[N'ewton asserts that the planets move in free paths, 
acted on by certain forces. The most exact calcula- 
tion gives the closest agreement of the results of this 
hypothesis with the facts. Descartes asserts that the 
planets are carried round by a fluid. The more rigor- 
ously the conceptions of force and the laws of motion are 
applied to this hypothesis, the more signal is its failure 
in reconciling the facts to one another. Without such 
calculation, we can come to no decision between the 
two hypotheses. If the Newtonian hold that the 
motions of the planets are evidently of the same kind 
as those of a body describing a curve in free space, 
and therefore, like that, to be explained by a force 
acting upon the body; the Cartesian denies that the 
planets do move in free space. They are, he main- 
tains, immersed in a plenum. It is only when it 
appears that comets pass through this plenum in all 

o 



194 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

directions with no impediment, and that no possible 
form and motion of its whirlpools can explain the forces 
and motions which are observed in the solar system, 
that he is compelled to allow the Newtonian's classifi- 
cation of events of the same kind. 

Thus it does not appear that this Knle of Newton 
can be interpreted in any distinct and positive manner, 
otherwise than as enjoining that, in the task of induc- 
tion, we employ clear ideas, rigorous reasoning, and 
close and fair comparison of the results of the hypo- 
thesis with the facts. These are, no doubt, important 
and fundamental conditions of a just induction; but 
in this injunction we find no peculiar or technical 
criterion by which we may satisfy ourselves that we 
are right, or detect our errors. Still, of such general 
prudential rules, none can be more wise than one 
which thus, in the task of connecting facts by means 
of ideas, recommends that the ideas be clear, the facts, 
correct, and the chain of reasoning which connects 
them, without a flaw. 

14. Of the Third Eule.— The Third Rule, that 
"qualities which are observed without exception be 
held to be universal," as I have already said, seems to 
be intended to authorize the assertion of gravitation 
as a universal attribute of matter. We formerly stated, 
in treating of Mechanical Ideas ^, that this application 
of such a Rule appears to be a mode of reasoning far 
from conclusive. The assertion of the universality of 
any property of bodies must be grounded upon the 
reason of the case, and not upon any arbitrary maxim. 
Is it intended by this Rule to prohibit any further ex- 
amination how far gravity is an original property of 
matter, and how far it may be resolved into the result 
of other agencies? We know perfectly well that this 
was not Newton's intention; since the cause of gravity 
was a point which he proposed to himself as a subject 
of inquiry. It would certainly be very unphilosoplucal 
to pretend, by tliis Rule of Philosophizing, to prejudge 
the question of such hypotheses as that of Mosotti, 



* History of Ideas, h. iii. c. x. 



NEWTON. 195 

That gravity is tlie excess of tlie electrical attraction 
over electrical repulsion, and yet to adopt this hy- 
pothesis, would be to suppose electrical forces more 
truly universal than gravity; for according to the 
hypothesis, gravity, being the inequality of the attrac- 
tion and repulsion, is only an accidental and partial 
relation of these forces. Nor would it be allowable to 
urge this Rule as a reason of assuming that double 
stars are attracted to each other by a force varying 
according to the inverse square of the distance j with- 
out examining, as Herschel and others have done, the 
orbits which they really describe. Bat if the E-ule 
is not available in such cases, what is its real value and 
authority'? and in what cases are they exemplified? 

15. In a former work", it was shown that the 
fundamental laws of motion, and the properties of 
matter which these involve, are, after a full considera- 
tion of the subject, unavoidably assumed as universally 
true. It was further shown, that although our know- 
ledge of these laws and properties be gathered from ex- 
perience, we are strongly impelled, (some philosophers 
think, authorized,) to look upon these as not only uni- 
versally, but necessarily true. It was also stated, that 
the law of gravitation, though its universality may be 
deemed probable, does not apparently involve the same 
necessity as the fundamental laws of motion. But it 
was pointed out that these are some of the most 
abstruse and difficult questions of the whole of phi- 
losophy; involving the profound, perhaps insoluble, 
problem of the identity or diversity of Ideas and 
Things. It cannot, therefore, be deemed philosophical 
to cut these Gordian knots by peremptory maxims, 
which encourage us to decide without rendering a 
reason. Moreover, it appears clear that the reason 
which is rendered for this Bule by the Newtonians is 
quite untenable; namely, that we know extension, 
hardness, and inertia, to be universal qualities of bo- 
dies by experience alone, and that we have the same 



" Ibid. b. iii. c. ix. x. xi. 

O 2 



196 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

evidence of experience for the universality of gravita- 
tion. We have already observed that we cannot, with 
any propriety, say that we find by experience all bodies 
are extended. This could not be a just assertion, 
unless we conceive the possibility of our finding the 
contrary. But who can conceive our finding by ex- 
perience some bodies which are not extended? It 
appears, then, that the reason given for the Third 
Rule of Newton involves a mistake respecting the 
nature and authority of experience. And the E,ule 
itself cannot be applied without attempting to decide, 
by the casual limits of observation, questions which 
necessarily depend upon the relations of ideas. 

16. Of the Fourth Rule. — Newton's Fourth Kule 
is, that "Propositions collected from phenomena by 
induction, shall be held to be true, notwithstanding 
contrary hypotheses; but shall be liable to be rendered 
more accurate, or to have their exceptions pointed out, 
by additional study of phenomena." This Rule con- 
tains little more than a general assertion of the autho- 
rity of induction, accompanied by Newton's usual 
protest against hyjjotheses. 

The really valuable part of the Fourth Rule is that 
which implies that a constant verification, and, if neces- 
sary, rectification, of truths discovered by induction, 
should go on in the scientific world. Even when the 
law is, or appears to be, most certainly exact and uni- 
versal, it should be constantly exhibited to us afresh in 
the form of experience and observation. This is neces- 
sary, in order to discover exceptions and modifications 
if such exist : and if the law be rigorously true, the 
contemplation of it, as exemplified in the world of 
phenomena, will best give us that clear apprehension 
of its bearings which may lead us to see the ground of 
its truth. 

The concluding clause of this Fourth Rule appears, 
at first, to imply that ail inductive propositions are to 
be considered as merely provisional and limited, and 
never secure from exception. But to judge thus would 
be to underrate the stability and generality of scientific 
truths ; for what man of science can suppose that we 



NEWTON. 197 

shall herea-fter discover exceptions to tlie universal 
gravitation of all parts of the solar system 1 And it 
is plain that the author did not intend the restric- 
tion to be applied so rigorously; for in the Third Rule, 
as we have just seen, he authorizes us to infer uni- 
versal jDroperties of matter from observation, and car- 
ries the liberty of inductive inference to its full 
extent. The Third Rule appears to encourage us to 
assert a law to be universal, even in cases in which 
it has not been tried; the Pourth Rule seems to warn 
us that the law may be inaccurate, even in cases in 
which it has been tried. Nor is either of these sug- 
gestions erroneous ; but both the universaiity and the 
rigorous accuracy of our laws are proved by reference 
to Ideas rather than to Experience; a truth, which, 
perhaps, the philosophers of Newton's time were some- 
what disposed to overlook. 

17. The disposition to ascribe all our knowledge to 
Experience, apjDears in Newton and the Newtonians 
by other indications; for instance, it is seen in their 
extreme dislike to the ancient expressions by which 
the principles and causes of phenomena were described, 
as the occult causes of the Schoolmen, and the forms 
of the Aristotelians, which had been adopted by Bacon. 
Newton says'', that the particles of matter not only 
possess inertia, but also active principles, as gravity, 
fermentation, cohesion; he adds, ''These principles I 
consider not as Occult Qualities, supposed to result 
from the Specific Forms of things, but as General 
Laws of Nature, by which the things themselves are 
formed: their truth appearing to us by phenomena, 
though their causes be not yet discovered. For these 
are manifest qualities, and their causes only are occult. 
And the Aristotelians gave the name of occult qualities^ 
not to manifest qualities, but to such qualities only as 
they supposed to lie hid in bodies, and to the unknown 
causes of manifest effects : such as would be the causes 
of gravity, and of magnetick and electrick attractions, 



' Opticks, qu- 31. 



198 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

and of fermentations, if we should suppose that these 
forces or actions arose from qualities unknown to us, 
and incapable of being discovered and made manifest. 
Such occult qualities put a stop to the improvement of 
Natural Philosophy, and therefore of late years have 
been rejected. To tell us that every species of things 
is endowed with an occult specific quality by which it 
acts and produces manifest effects, is to tell us no- 
thing : but to derive two or three general principles of 
motion from phenomena, and afterwards to tell us how 
the properties and actions of all corporeal things fol- 
low from these manifest principles, would be a great 
step in philosophy, though the causes of those prin- 
ciples were not yet discovered : and therefore I scruple 
not to propose the principles of motion above main- 
tained, they being of very general extent, and leave 
their causes to be found out." 

18. All that is here said is highly philosophical and 
valuable ; but we may observe that the investigation of 
specific forms in the sense in v/hich some writers had 
used the phrase, was by no means a frivolous or un- 
meaning object of inquiry. Bacon and others had used 
form as equivalent to law^. If we could ascertain 
that arrangement of the particles of a crystal from 
which its external crystalline form and other proper- 
ties arise, this arrangement would be the internal form 
of the crystal. If the undulatory theory be true, the 
form of light is transverse vibrations : if the emission 
theory be maintained, the form of light is particles 
moving in straight lines, and deflected by various 
forces. Both the terms, ybrm and laio, imply an ideal 
connexion of sensible phenomena; form supposes mat- 



8 Nov. Org. 1. ii. Aph. 2. " Licet legem, ejusque paragraphos, forma- 

enim in natura nihil existet praeter rum nomine intelligimus ; praesertini 

corpora individua, edentia actus pu- cum lioc vocabulum invaluerit, et 

ros individuos ex lege ; in doctriuis familiariter occurrat." 

tamen Ula ipsa lex, ejusque inquisi- Aph. 17. "Eadem res est forma 

tio, et inventio, et explicatio, pro calidi vel forma luminis, et lex calidi 

fundamento est tam ad sciendum aut lex luminis." 
quam ad operaudum. Earn autem 



NEWTON. 199 

ter which is moulded to the form ; law supposes objects 
which are governed by the law. The former term 
refers more precisely to existences, the latter to occur- 
rences. The latter term is now the more familiar, and 
is, perhaps, the better metaphor : but the former also 
contains the essential antithesis which belongs to the 
subject, and might be used in expressing the same con- 
clusions. 

But occult causes, employed in the way in which 
Newton describes, had certainly been very prejudicial 
to the progress of knowledge, by stopping inquiry with 
a mere word. The absurdity of such pretended expla- 
nations had not escaped ridicule. The pretended phy- 
sician in the comedy gives an example of an occult 
cause or virtue. 

MiM demandatur 
A doctissimo Doctore 
Quare Opium facit dormire: 
Et ego respondeo. 
Quia est in eo 
Virtus dormitiva, 
Cujus natura est sensus assoupire. 

1 9. But the most valuable part of the view present- 
ed to us in the quotation just given from Newton is 
the distinct separation, already noticed as peculiarly 
brought into prominence by him, of the determination 
of the laws of phenomena, and the investigation of 
their causes. The maxim, that the former inquiry 
must precede the latter, and that if the general laws 
of facts be discovered, the result is highly valuable, 
although the causes remain unknown, is extremely 
important ; and had not, I think, ever been so strongly 
and clearly stated, till Newton both repeatedly pro- 
mulgated the precept, and added to it the weight of 
the most striking examples. 

We have seen that Newton, along with views the 
most just and important concerning the nature and 
methods of science, had something of the tendency, 
prevalent in his time, to suspect or reject, at least 
speculatively, all elements of knowledge except ob- 
servation. This tendency was, however, in him so 



200 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

corrected and restrained by liis own wonderful sagacity 
and mathematical habits, that it scarcely led to any 
opinion which we might not safely adopt. But we 
must now consider the cases in which this tendency 
operated in a more unbalanced manner, and led to the 
assertion of doctrines which, if consistently followed, 
would destroy the very foundations of all general and 
certain knowledge. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Locke and his French Followers. 



I. TN the constant opposition and struggle of the 
X schools of philosophy, which consider our Senses 
and our Ideas respectively, as the principal sources of 
our knowledge, we have seen that at the period of 
which we now treat, the tendency was to exalt the 
external and disparage the internal element. The dis- 
position to ascribe our knowledge to observation alone, 
had already, in Bacon's time, led him to dwell to a 
disproportionate degree upon that half of his subject; 
and had tinged Newton's expressions, though it had 
not biassed his practice. But this partiality soon as- 
sumed a more prominent shape, becoming extreme in 
Locke, and extravagant in those who professed to 
follow him. 

Indeed Locke appears to owe his popularity and 
influence as a popular writer mainly to his being one 
of the first to express, in a plain and unhesitating 
manner, opinions which had for some time been ripen- 
ing in the minds of a large portion of the cultivated 
public. Hobbes had already promulgated the main 
doctrines which Locke afterwards urged, on the sub- 
ject of the origin and nature of our knowledge : but 
in him these doctrines were combined with ofiensive 
opinions on points of morals, government, and religion, 
so that their access to general favour was impeded : 
and it was to Locke that they were indebted for the 
extensive influence which they soon after obtained. 
Locke owed this authority mainly to the intellectual 
circumstances of the time. Although a writer of 
great merit, he by no means possesses such metaphysi- 
cal acuteness or such philosophical largeness of view, 



202 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

or such a charm of writing, as must necessarily give 
him the high place he has held in the literature of 
Europe. But he came at a period when the reign of 
Ideas was tottering to its fall. All the most active 
and ambitious spirits had gone over to the new opinions, 
and were prepared to follow the fortunes of the Philo- 
sophy of Experiment, then in the most prosperous 
and brilliant condition, and full of still brighter pro- 
mise. There were, indeed, a few learned and thought- 
ful men who still remained faithful to the empire of 
Ideas; partly, it may be, from a too fond attachment 
to ancient systems; but partly, also, because they knew 
that there were subjects of vast importance, in which 
experience did 'not form the whole foundation of our 
knowledge. They knew, too, that many of the plau- 
sible tenets of the new philosophy were revivals of 
fallacies which had been discussed and refuted in an- 
cient times. But the advocates of mere experience 
came on with a vast store of weighty truth among 
their artillery, and with the energy which the advance 
usually bestows. The ideal system of philosophy could, 
for the present, make no effectual resistance; Locke, 
by putting himself at the head of the assault, became 
the hero of his day : and his name has been used as 
the watchword of those who adhere to the philosophy 
of the senses up to our own times. 

2. Locke himself did not assert the exclusive au- 
thority of the senses in the extreme unmitigated 
manner in which some who call themselves his disci- 
ples have done. But this is the common lot of the 
leaders of revolutions, for they are usually bound by 
some ties of affection and habit to the previous state 
of things, and would not destroy all traces of that 
condition : while their followers attend, not to their 
inconsistent wishes, but to the meaning of the revolu- 
tion itself; and carry out, to their genuine and com- 
plete results, the principles which won the victory, 
and which have been brought out more sharp from 
the conflict. Thus Locke himself does not assert that 
all our ideas are derived from Sensation, but from 
Sensation and Reflection. But it was easily seen that, 



LOCKE AND HIS FRENCH FOLLOWERS. 203 

in this assertion, two very heterogeneous elements 
were conjoined : that while to pronounce Sensation 
the origin of ideas, is a clear decided tenet, the ac- 
ceptance or rejection of which determines the general 
character of our philosophy; to make the same decla- 
ration concerning Reflection, is in the highest degree 
vague and ambiguous; since reflection may either be 
resolved into a mere modification of sensation, as was 
done by one school, or may mean all that the opposite 
school opposes to sensation, under the name of Ideas. 
Hence the clear and strong impression which fastened 
upon men's minds, and which does in fact represent 
all the systematic and consistent part of Locke's phi- 
losophy, was, that in it all our ideas are represented 
as derived from Sensation. 

3. We need not spend much time in pointing out 
the inconsistencies into which Locke fell ; as all must 
fall into inconsistencies who recognize no source of 
knowledge except the senses. Thus he maintains that 
our Idea of Space is derived from the senses of sight 
and touch ; our Idea of Solidity from the touch alone. 
Our Notion of Substance is an unknown support of 
unknown qualities, and is illustrated by the Indian 
fable of the tortoise which supports the elephant, which 
supports the world. Our Notion of Power or Cause 
is in like manner got from the senses. And yet, 
though these ideas are thus mere fragments of our 
experience, Locke does not hesitate to ascribe to them 
necessity and universality when they occur in pro- 
positions. Thus he maintains the necessary truth of 
geometrical properties : he asserts that the resistance 
arising from solidity is absolutely insurmountable^; he 
conceives that nothing short of Omnipotence can 
annihilate a particle of matter^; and he has no mis- 
givings in arguing upon the axiom that Every thing 
must have a cause. He does not perceive that, upon 
his own account of the origin of our knowledge, we 
can have no right to make any of these assertions. If 



1 Essay, b. xi. c. iv. sect. 3. 2 jjyi(^_ q^ xiii sect. 22. 



204 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

our knowledge of the truths which concern the exter- 
nal world were wholly derived from experience, all 
that we could venture to say would be, — that geome- 
trical properties of figures are true as far as we have 
tried them; — that we have seen no example of a solid 
body being reduced to occupy less space by pressure, 
or of a material substance annihilated by natural 
means; — and that wherever we have examined, we have 
found that every change has had a cause. Experience 
can never entitle us to declare that what she has not 
seen is impossible ; still less, that things which she can 
not see are certain. Locke himself intended to throw 
no doubt upon the certainty of either human or divine 
knowledge; but his principles, when men discarded 
the temper in which he applied them, and the checks 
to their misapplication which he conceived that he 
had provided, easily led to a very comprehensive skep- 
ticism. His doctrines tended to dislodge from their 
true bases the most indisputable parts of knowledge; 
as, for example, pure and mixed mathematics. It may 
well be supposed, therefore, that they shook the foun- 
dations of many other parts of knowledge in the minds 
of common thinkers. 

It was not long before these consequences of the 
overthrow of ideas showed themselves in the specula- 
tive world. I have already in a previous work^ 
mentioned Hume's skeptical inferences from Locke's 
maxim, that we have no ideas except those which 
we acquire by experience ; and the doctrines set up 
in opposition to this by the metaphysicians of Ger- 
many. I might trace the progress of the sensational 
opinions in Britain till the reaction took place here 
also : but they were so much more clearly and deci- 
dedly followed out in France, that I shall pursue 
their history in that country. 

4. TJie French Followers of Locke, Gondillac, d^c. — 
Most of the French writers who adopted Locke's lead- 
ing doctrines, rejected the "Reflection," which formed 



3 History of Ideas, b. iii. c, iii. Modern Opiuions respecting the Idea of 
Cause. 



LOCKE AND HIS FRENCH TOLLOWERS. 205 

an anomalous part of his philosophy, and declared that 
Sensation alone was the source of ideas. Among these 
writers, Condillac was the most distinguished. He 
expressed the leading tenet of their school in a clear 
and pointed manner by saying that "All ideas are 
transformed sensations." We have already considered 
this j)hrase*, and need not here dwell upon it. 

Opinions such as these tend to annihilate, as we 
have seen, one of the two co-ordinate elements of our 
knowledge. Yet they were far from being so preju- 
dicial to the progress of science, or even of the philo- 
sophy of science, as might have been anticijoated. One 
reason of this was, that they were practically corrected, 
especially among the cultivators of Natural Philosophy, 
by the study of mathematics ; for that study did really 
supply all that was requisite on the ideal side of sci- 
ence, so far as the ideas of space, time, and number, 
were concerned, and partly also with regard to the idea 
of cause and some others. And the methods of disco- 
very, though the philosophy of them made no material 
advance, were practically employed with so much ac- 
tivity, and in so many various subjects, that a certain 
kind of prudence and skill in this employment was 
very widely diffused. 

5. Importance of Language. — In one resjoect this 
school of metaphysicians rendered a very valuable ser- 
vice to the philosophy of science. They brought into 
prominent notice the great importance of toords and 
terms in the formation and progress of knowledge, and 
pointed out that the office of language is not only to 
convey and preserve our thoughts, but to perform the 
analysis in which reasoning consists. They were led 
to this train of speculation, in a great measure, by 
taking pure mathematical science as their standard 
example of substantial knowledge. Condillac, reject- 
ing, as we have said, almost all those ideas on which 
universal and demonstrable truths must be based, 
was still not at all disposed to question the reality of 



■* Ibid. b. i c. iv. 



206 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

human knowledge ; but was, on tlie contrary, a zealous 
admirer of the evidence and connexion which appear 
in those sciences which have the ideas of space and 
number for their foundation, especially the latter. He 
looked for the grounds of the certainty and reality of 
the knowledge which these sciences contain; and found 
them, as he conceived, in the nature of the language 
which they employ. The Signs which are used in 
arithmetic and algebra enable us to keep steadily in 
view the identity of the same quantity under all the 
forms which, by composition and decomposition, it 
may be made to assume; and these Signs also not 
only express the operations which are performed, but 
suggest the extension of the operations according to 
analogy. Algebra, according to him, is only a very 
perfect language ; and language answers its purpose of 
leading us to truth, by possessing the characteristics of 
algebra. Words are the symbols of certain groups of 
impressions or facts ; they are so selected and applied 
as to exhibit the analogies which prevail among these 
facts ; and these analogies are the truths of which our 
knowledge consists. " Every language is an analytical 
method; every analytical method is a language^;" 
these were the truths "alike new and simple," as he 
held, which he conceived that he had demonstrated. 
" The art of speaking, the art of writing, the art of 
reasoning, the art of thinking, are only, at bottom, one 
and the same art*'." Each of these operations consists 
in a succession of analytical operations ; and words are 
the marks by which we are able to fix our minds upon 
the steps of this analysis. 

6. The analysis of our impressions and notions 
does in reality lead to truth, not only in virtue of the 
identity of the whole with its parts, as Condillac held, 
but also in virtue of certain Ideas which govern the 
synthesis of our sensations, and which contain the 
elements of universal truths, as we have all along en- 
deavoured to show. But although Condillac overlooked 
or rejected this doctrine, the importance of words, as 



Langice des Calculs, p. i. 6 Grammaire, p. xxxvL 



LOCKE AND HIS FRENCH FOLLOWERS. 20 7 

marking the successive steps of this synthesis and 
analysis, is not less than he represented it to be. Every 
truth, once established by induction from facts, when 
it is become familiar under a brief and precise form 
of expression, becomes itself a fact ; and is capable of 
being employed, along with other facts of a like kind, 
as the materials of fi-esh inductions. In this successive 
process, the term, like the cord of a fagot, both binds 
together the facts which it includes, and makes it pos- 
sible to manage the assemblage as a single thing. On 
occasion of most discoveries in science, the selection of 
a technical term is an essential part of the proceeding. 
In the History of Science, we have had numerous op- 
portunities of remarking this ; and the List of technical 
terms given as an Index to that work, refers us, by 
almost every word, to one such occasion. And these 
terms, which thus have had so large a share in the 
formation of science, and which constitute its langTiage, 
do also offer the means of analyzing its truths, each 
into its constituent truths; and these into facts more 
special, till the original foundations of our most gene- 
ral propositions are clearly exhibited. The relations 
of general and particular truths are most evidently 
represented by the Inductive Tables given in Book II. 
of the Novum Organon Renovatum. But each step 
in each of these Tables has its proper form of ex- 
pression, familiar among the cultivators of science ; 
and the analysis which our Tables display, is com- 
monly performed in men's minds, when it becomes 
necessary, by fixing the attention successively upon a 
series of words, not upon the lines of a Table. Lan- 
guage offers to the mind such a scale or ladder as the 
Table offers to the eye ; and since such Tables present 
to us, as we have said, the Logic of Induction, that is, 
the formal conditions of the soundness of our reasoning 
from facts, we may with propriety say that a just ana- 
lysis of the meaning of words is an essential portion of 
Inductive Logic. 

In saying this, we must not forget that a decom- 
position of general truths into ideas, as well as into 
facts, belongs to our philosophy; but the point we 



208 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

have here to remark, is the essential importance of 
words to the latter of these processes. And this point 
had not ever had its due weight assigned to it till the 
time of Condillac and other followers of Locke, who 
pursued their speculations in the spirit I have just 
described. The doctrine of the importance of terms is 
the most considerable addition to the philosophy of 
science which has been made since the time of Bacon'. 

7. The French Encyclopedists. — The French Ency- 
clopedie, published in 1751, of which Diderot and Da- 
lembert were the editors, may be considered as repre- 
senting the leading characters of European philosophy 
during the greater part of the eighteenth century. The 
writers in this work belong for the most part to the 
school of Locke and Condillac; and we may make a 
few remarks upon them, in order to bring into view 
one or two points in addition to what we have already 
said of that school. The Discours Freliminaire, written 
by Dalembert, is celebrated as containing a view of 
the origin of our knowledge, and the connexion and 
classification of the sciences. 

A tendency of the speculations of the Encyclope- 
dists, as of the School of Locke in general, is to reject 
all ideal principles of connexion among facts, as some- 
thing which experience, the only source of true know- 
ledge, does not give. Hence all certain knowledge 
consists only in the recognition of the same thing un- 
der different aspects, or different forms of expression. 
Axioms are not the result of an original relation of 
ideas, but of the use, or it may be the abuse ^, of words. 
In like manner, the propositions of Geometry are a 
series of modifications, — of distortions, so to speak, — 
of one original truth ; much as if the proposition were 
stated in the successive forms of expression presented 
by a language which was constantly grooving more and 



7 Since the selection and construe- ciples, sliould. be laid down for the 

tion of terms is thus a matter of so performance of this operation. Some 

much consequence in the formation such rules are accordingly suggested 

of science, it is proper that systema- in b. iv. of the Nov. Org. Ken. 
tic rules, founded upon sound prin- ^ Disc. Prdlim. p. vm. 



LOCKE A^^D HIS FRENCH FOLLOWERS. 209 

more artificial Several of the sciences wMcIl rest 
upon physical principles, that is, (says the writer,) 
truths of experience or simple hypotheses, have only 
an experimental or hypothetical certainty. Impene- 
trability added to the idea of extent is a mystery in 
addition : the nature of motion is a riddle for philoso- 
phers : the metaphysical principle of the laws of per- 
cussion is equally concealed fi-om them. The more 
profoundly they study the idea of matter and of the 
properties which represent it, the more obscure this 
idea becomes; the more completely does it escape 
them. 

8. This is a veiy common style of reflection, even 
down to our own times. I have endeavoured to show 
that concerning the Fundamental Ideas of space, of 
force and resistance, of substance, external quality, 
and the like, we know enough to make these Ideas the 
grounds of certain and imiversal truths; — enough to 
supply us with axioms from which we can demonstra- 
tively reason. If men wish for any other knowledge 
of the nature of matter than that which ideas, and 
facts conformable to ideas, give them, undoubtedly 
their desire will be frustrated, and they will be left in 
a mysterious vacancy ; for it does not appear how such 
knowledge as they ask for could be knowledge at all. 
But in reality, this complaint of our ignorance of the 
real nature of things proceeds from the rejection of 
ideas, and the assumption of the senses alone as the 
ground of knowledge. "Observation and calculation 
are the only sources of truth:" this is the motto of 
the school of which we now speak. And its import 
amounts to this : — that they reject all ideas except the 
idea of number, and recogniiie the modifications which 
parts undergo by addition and subtraction as the only 
modes in which true propositions are generated. The 
laws of nature are assemblages of facts : the truths of 
science are assertions of the identity of things which 
are the same. " By the avowal of almost all philoso- 
phers," says a writer of this school^, "the most sublime 



9 Helvetius Sur V Homme, c. yyiii. 



210 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

truths, when once simplified and reduced to their low- 
est terms, are converted into facts, and thenceforth 
present to the mind only this proposition ; the white is 
white, the black is black." 

These statements are true in what they positively 
assert, but they involve error in the denial which by 
implication they convey. It is true that observation 
and demonstration are the only sources of scientific 
truth; but then, demonstration may be founded on 
other grounds besides the elementary properties of 
number. It is true that the theory of gravitation is 
but the assertion of a general fact; but this is so, not 
because a sound theory does not involve ideas, but be- 
cause our apprehension of a fact does. 

9. Another characteristic indication of the temper 
of the Encyclopedists and of the age to which they 
belong, is the importance by them assigned to those 
practical Arts which minister to man's comfort and 
convenience. Not only, in the body of the Encyclo- 
pedia, are the Mechanical Arts placed side by side 
with the Sciences, and treated at great length ; but in 
the Preliminary Discourse, the preference assigned to 
the liberal over the mechanical Arts is treated as a 
prejudice^", and the value of science is spoken of as 
measured by its utility. " The discovery of the Mari- 
ner's Compass is not less advantageous to the human 
race than the explanation of its properties would be to 
physics. — Why should we not esteem those to whom 
we owe the fusee and the escapement of watches as 
much as the inventors of Algebra?" And in the clas- 
sification of sciences which accompanies the Discourse, 
the labours of artisans of all kinds have a place. 

This classification of the various branches of science 
contained in the Dissertation is often spoken of It 
has for its basis the classification proposed by Bacon, 
in which the parts of human knowledge are arranged 
according to the faculties of the mind in which they 
originate ; and these faculties are taken, both by Bacon 
and by Dalembert, as Memory, Keason, and Imagi- 



10 p. xuL 



LOCKE AND HIS FRENCH FOLLOWERS. 211 

nation. The insufficiency of Bacon's arrangement as a 
scientific classification is so glaring, that the adoption 
of it, with only superficial modifications, at the period 
of the Encyclopedia, is a remarkable proof of the want 
of original thought and real philosophy at the time of 
which we speak. 

lo. We need not trace further the opinion which 
derives all our knowledge from the senses in its appli- 
cation to the philosophy of Science. Its declared aim 
is to reduce all knowledge to the knowledge of Facts; 
and it rejects all inquiries which involve the Idea of 
Cause, and similar Ideas, describing them as "meta- 
physical," or in some other damnatory way. It pro- 
fesses, indeed, to discard all Ideas; but, as we have 
long ago seen, some Ideas or other are inevitably in- 
cluded even in the simplest Facts. Accordingly the 
speculations of this school are compelled to retain the 
relations of PositioD, Succession, Number and Resem- 
blance, which are rigorously ideal relations. The phi- 
losophy of Sensation, in order to be consistent, ought 
to reject these Ideas along with the rest, and to deny 
altogether the possibility of general knowledge. 

When the opinions of the Sensational School had 
gone to an extreme length, a Reaction naturally began 
to take place in men's minds. Such have been the 
alternations of opinion, from the earliest ages of human 
speculation. Man may perhaps have existed in an 
original condition in which he was only aware of the 
impressions of Sense; but his first attempts to analyse 
his perce2)tions brought under his notice Ideas as a 
separate element, essential to the existence of know- 
ledge. Ideas were thenceforth almost the sole subject 
of the study of philosophers ; of Plato and his disci- 
ples, professedly; of Aristotle, and still more of the 
followers and commentators of Aristotle, practically. 
And this continued till the time of Galileo, when the 
authority of the Senses again began to be asserted; 
for it was shown by the great discoveries which were 
then made, that the Senses had at least some share in 
the promotion of knowledge. As discoveries more 
numerous and more striking were supplied by Obser- 

P 2 



212 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

vation, tlie world gradually passed over to the opinion 
that the share which had been ascribed to Ideas in the 
formation of real knowledge was altogether a delusion, 
and that Sensation alone was true. But when this 
was asserted as a general doctrine, both its manifest 
falsity and its alarming consequences roused men's 
minds, and made them recoil from the extreme point 
to which they were approaching. Philosophy again 
oscillated back towards Ideas ; and over a great part of 
Europe, in the clearest and most comprehensive minds, 
this regression from the dogmas of the Sensational 
School is at present the prevailing movement. We 
shall conclude our review by noticing a few indications 
of this state of things. 



CHAPTEE XX. 
The Eeaction against the Sensational School. 



I. "\TTIIE1S' Locke's Essay appeared, it was easily 
1 V seen that its tendency was to nrge, in a much 
more rigorous sense than had previously been usual, 
the ancient maxim of Aristotle, adopted by the school- 
men of the middle ages, that "nothing exists in the 
intellect but what has entered by the senses." Leib- 
nitz expressed in a pointed manner the limitation with 
which this doctrine had always been understood. " Ni- 
hil est in intellectu quod non prius fuerit in sensu; — 
'?^ew^;:>e," he added, "msz intellectus ipseJ^ To this it 
has been objected \ that we cannot say that the in- 
tellect is in the intellect. But this remark is obvi- 
ously frivolous ; for the faculties of the understanding 
(which are what the argument against the Sensational 
School requires us to reserve) may be said to be i7i the 
understanding, v/ith as much justice as we may assert 
there are in it the impressions derived from sense. 
And when we take account of these faculties, and 
of the Ideas to which, by their operation, we neces- 
sarily subordinate our apprehension of phenomena, we 
are led to a refutation of the philosophy which makes 
phenomena, unconnected by Ideas, the source of all 
knowledge. The succeeding opponents of the Lockian 
school insisted upon and developed in various ways 
this remark of Leibnitz, or some equivalent view. 

2. It was by inquiries into the foundations of 
Morals that English philosophers were led to question 
the truth of Locke's theory. Dr. Price, in his Review 



1 See Mr Sbarpe's Essays. 



214 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

of the Principal Questions in Morals, first published 
in 1757, maintained that we cannot with propriety 
assert all our ideas to be derived from sensation and 
reflection. He pointed out, very steadily, the other 
source. "The power, I assert, that understands, or 
the faculty within us that discerns truth, and that 
1,1 I compares all the objects of thought and judges of them, 

y^l is a spring of new ideas ^" And he exhibits the anti- 

li! thesis in various forms. ^^^ evQ not sense dJCidi knowledge 

' entirely difierent, we should rest satisfied with sensible 

impressions, such as light, colours and sounds, a,nd in- 
quire no further about them, at least when the im- 
pressions are strong and vigorous: whereas, on the 
contrary, we necessarily desire some further acquaint- 
ance with them, and can never be satisfied till we have 
subjected them to the survey of reason. Sense presents 
particular forms to the mind, but cannot rise to any 
general ideas. It is the intellect that examines and 
compares the presented forms, that rises above indi- 
viduals to universal and abstract ideas ; and thus looks 
downward upon objects, takes in at one view an in- 
f finity of particulars, and is capable of discovering 

general truths. Sense sees only the outside of things, 
reason acquaints itself with their natures. Sensation 
is only a mode of feeling in the mind ; but knowledge 
implies an active and vital energy in the mind^." 
3. The necessity of refuting Hume's inferences from 
I the mere-sensation system led other writers to limit, in 

1 various ways, their assent to Locke. Especially was 

' this the case with a niimber of intelligent metaphysi- 

cians in Scotland, as Reid, Beattie, Dugald Stewart, 
and Thomas Brown. Thus Beid asserte^, "that the 
account which Mr. Locke himself gives of the Idea of 
Fv^wer cannot be reconciled to his favourite doctrine, 
that all our simple ideas have their origin from sensa- 
tion or reflection." Beid remarks, that our memory 
and our reasoning power come in for a share in the 



2 Price's Essays, p. 16. » P. 18. 

* Reid, Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind, iil 31. 



REACTION AGAINST SENSATIONISTS. 215 

origin of this idea : and in speaking of reasoning, lie 
obviously assumes the axiom that every event must 
have a cause. By succeeding writers of this school, 
the assumption of the fundamental principles, to which 
our nature in such cases irresistibly directs us, is more 
clearly pointed out. Thus Stewart defends the form 
of expression used by Price-^: "A variety of intuitive 
judgments might be mentioned, involving simple ideas, 
which it is impossible to trace to any origin but to the 
power which enables us to form these judgments. Thus 
it is surely an intuitive truth that the sensations of 
which I am conscious, and all those I remember, be- 
long to one and the same being, which I call myself. 
Here is an intuitive judgment involving the simple 
idea of Identity. In like manner, the changes which 
I perceive in the universe impress me with a convic- 
tion that some cause must have operated to produce 
them. Here is an intuitive judgment iuvolving the 
simple Idea of Causation. When we consider the 
adjacent angles made by a straight line standing upon 
another, and perceive that their sum is equal to two 
right angles, the judgment we form involves a simple 
idea of Equality. To say, therefore, that the Heason 
or the Understanding is a source of new ideas, is not 
so exceptionable a mode of speaking as has been some- 
times supposed. According to Locke, Sense furnishes 
our ideas, and Reason perceives their agreements and 
disagreements. But the. truth is, that these agree- 
ments and disagreements are in many instances, sim- 
ple ideas, of which no analysis can be given ; and of 
which the origin must therefore be referred to Reason, ^ 

according to Locke's own doctrine." This view, ac- 
cording to which the Reason or Understanding is the 
source of certain simple ideas, such as Identity, Causa- 
tion, Equality, which ideas are necessarily involved 
in the intuitive judgments which we form, when we 
recognize fundamental truths of science, approaches 
very near in effect to the doctrine which in several works 
I have presented, of Fundamental Ideas belonging to 



f 



* Stewart, Outlines of Moral Phil. p. 138. 



^l6 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

eacli science, and manifesting themselves in the axioms 
of the science. It may be observed, however, that by 
attempting to enumerate these ideas and axioms, so as 
to lay the foundations of the whole body of physical 
science, and by endeavouring, as far as possible, to 
simplify and connect each group of such Ideas, I 
have at least given a more systematic form to this 
doctrine. I have, moreover, traced it into many 
consequences to which it necessarily leads, but which 
do not appear to have been contemplated by the meta- 
physicians of the Scotch school. But I gladly acknow- 
ledge my obligations to the writers of that school; 
and I trust that in the near agreement of my views 
on such points with theirs, there is ground for believ- 
ing the system of philosophy which I have presented, 
to be that to which the minds of thoughtful men, 
who have meditated on such subjects, are generally 
tending. 

4. As a further instance that such a tendency is 
at work, I may make a quotation from an eminent 
English philosophical writer of another school. " If 
you will be at the pains," says Archbishop Whately^, 
" carefully to analyze the simplest description you hear 
of any transaction or state of things, you will find that 
the process wliich almost invariably takes place is, in 
logical language, this : that each individual has in his 
mind certain major premises or principles relative to 
the subject in question; — that observation of what 
actually presents itself to the senses, supplies minor 
premises; and that the statement given (and which is 
reported as a thing experienced) consists, in fact, of 
the conclusions drawn from the combinations of these 
premises." The major premises here spoken of are 
the Fundamental Ideas, and the Axioms and Proposi- 
tions to which they lead; and whatever is regarded 
as a fact of observation is necessarily a conclusion in 
which these propositions are assumed; for these con- 
tain, as we have said, the conditions of our experience. 



6 Wliately, Polit. Econ. p. 76. 



REACTION AGAINST SENSATIONISTS. 21 7 

Our experience conforms to these axioms and their 
consequences, whether or not the connexion be stated 
in a logical manner, by means of premises and a con- 
clusion. 

5. The same persuasion is also suggested by the 
course which the study of metaphysics has taken of 
late years in France. In that country, as we have 
seen, the Sensational System, which was considered as 
the necessary consequence of the revolution begun by 
Locke, obtained a more complete ascendancy than it 
did in England; and in that country too, the reaction, 
among metaphysical and moral writers, when its time 
came, was more decided and rapid than it was among 
Locke's own countrymen. It would appear that M. 
Laromiguiere was one of the first to give expression to 
this feeling, of the necessity of a modification of the 
sensational philosophy. He began by professing him- 
self the disciple of Condi llac, even while he was almost 
unconsciously subverting the fundamental principles 
of that writer. And thus, as M. Cousin justly ob- 
serves^, his opinions had the more powerful efiect from 
being presented, not as thwarting and contradicting, 
but as sharing and following out the spirit of his age. 
M. Laromiguiere's work, entitled Essai sur les Facul- 
tes de VAme, consists of lectures given to the Faculty 
of Letters of the Academy of Paris, in the years 181 1, 
18 1 2 and 18 13. In the views which these lectures 
present, there is much which the author has in com- 
mon with Condillac. But he is led by his investiga- 
tion to assert^, that it is not true that sensation is the 
sole fundamental element of our thoughts and our un- / 

derstanding. Attention also is requisite : and here we 
have an element of quite another kind. For sensation 
is passive; attention is active. Attention does not 
spring out of sensation; the passive principle is not 
the reason of the active principle. Activity and pas- 
sivity are two facts entii-ely difierent. Nor can this 
activity be defined or derived; being, as the author 



I 



7 Cousin, Fragmens Philosophiqxies, i. 53. 8 JUd. i. 67. 



2l8 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

says, a fundamental idea. The distinction is manifest 
by its own nature ; and we may find evidence of it in 
the very forms of language. To look is more than to 
see; to hearken is more than to hear. The French 
language marks this distinction with respect to other 
senses also. " On voit, et Ton regarde; on entend, et 
Ton ecoute; on sent, et Ton flair e; on goute, et Ton 
savour e."" And thus the mere sensation, or capacity 
of feeling, is only the occasion on which the attention 
is exercised; while the attention is the foundation of 
all the operations of the understanding. 

The reader of my works will have seen how much 
I have insisted upon the activity of the mind, 
as the necessary basis of all knowledge. In all ob- 
servation and experience, the mind is active, and 
by its activity apprehends all sensations in subor- 
dination to its own ideas ; and thus it becomes capa- 
ble of collecting knowledge from phenomena, since 
ideas involve general relations and connexions, which 
sensations of themselves cannot involve. And thus 
we see that, in this respect also, our philosophy 
stands at that point to which the speculations of the 
most reflecting men Imve of late constantly been 
verging. 

6. M. Cousin himself, from whom we have quoted 
the above account of Laromiguiere, shares in this tend- 
ency, and has argued very energetically and success- 
fully against the doctrines of the Sensational School. 
He has made it his office once more to bring into 
notice among his countrymen, the doctrine of ideas as 
the sources of knowledge; and has revived the study 
of Plato, who may still be considered as one of the 
great leaders of the ideal school. But the larger 
portion of M. Cousin's works refers to questions 
out of the reach of our present review, and it would 
be unsuitable to dwell longer upon them in this 
place. 

7. We turn to speculations more closely connected 
with our present subject. M. Ampere, a French man 
of science, well entitled by his extensive knowledge, 
and large and profound views, to deal with the philo- 



EEACTION AGAINST SEXSATIOXISTS. 219 

sophy of the sciences, published in 1834, his Essai sur 
la Philosophie des Sciences, ou Exposition analytique 
cTune Classification Naturelle de toutes les Connaissances 
Humaines. . In this remarkable work we see strong 
evidence of the progress of the reaction against the 
system which derives our knowledge from sensation 
only. The author starts from a maxim, that in class- 
ing the sciences, we must not only regard the nature 
of the objects about which each science is concerned, 
but also the point of view under which it considers 
them: that is, the ideas which each science involves. 
M. Ampere also gives briefly his views of the intel- 
lectual constitution of man; a subject on which he 
had long and sedulously employed his thoughts; and 
these views are far from belonging to the Sensational 
School. Human thought, he says, is composed of phe- 
nomena and of conceptions. Phenomena are external, 
or sensitive; and internal, or active. Conceptions are 
01 four kinds ; primitive, as space and motion, duration 
and cause; objective, as our idea of matter and sub- 
stance; onomatic, or those which we associate with 
the general terms which language presents to us ; and 
explicative, by which we ascend to causes after a com- 
parative study of phenomena. He teaches further, 
that in deriving ideas from sensation, the mind is not 
passive; but exerts an action which, when voluntary, 
is called attention, but when it is, as it often is, invo- 
luntary, may be termed reaction. 

I shall not dwell upon the examination of these 
opinions^; but I may remark, that both in the recog- 
nition of conceptions as an original and essential ele- 
ment of the mind, and in giving a prominent place to 
the active function of the mind, in the origin of our 
knowledge, this view approaches to that which I have 
presented in preceding works; although undoubtedly 
with considerable differences. 

8. The classification of the sciences which M. 



» See also the vigorous critique of Locke's Essay, by Lemaistre, Soirees de 
St Fetersbtntrg. 



220 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

Ampere proposes, is founded upon a consideration of 
the sciences themselves; and is, the author conceives, 
in accordance with the conditions of natural classifi- 
cations, as exhibited in Botany and other sciences. It 
is of a more symmetrical kind, and exhibits more steps 
of subordination, than that to which I have been led ; 
it includes also practical Art as well as theoretical Sci- 
ence ; and it is extended to moral and political as well 
as physical Sciences. It will not be necessary for me 
here to examine it in detail : but I may remark, that 
it is throughout a didiotomous division, each higher 
member being subdivided into two lower ones, and so 
on. In this way, M. Ampere obtains sciences of the 
First Order, each of which is divided into two sciences 
of the Second, and four of the Third Order. Thus 
Mechanics is divided into Cinematics, Statics, Dyna- 
mics, and Molecular Mechanics; Physics is divided 
into Experimental Physics, Chemistry, Stereometry, and 
Atomology ; Geology is divided into Physical Geogra- 
phy, Mineralogy, Geonomy, and Theory of the Earth. 
Without here criticizing these divisions or their prin- 
ciple, I may observe that Cinematics, the doctrine of 
motion without reference to the force which produces 
it, is a portion of knowledge which our investigation 
has led us also to see the necessity of erecting into 
a separate science; and which we have termed Pure 
Mechanism. Of the divisions of Geology, Physical 
Geography, especially as explained by M. Ampere, is 
certainly a part of the subject, both important and 
tolerably distinct from the rest. Geonomy contains 
what we have termed in the History, Descriptive Geo- 
logy ; — the exhibition of the facts separate from the 
inquiry into their causes; while our Physical Geology 
agrees with M. Ampere's Theory of the Earth. Mine- 
ralogy appears to be placed by him in a different place 
from that which it occupies in our scheme: but in 
fact, he uses the term for a different science; he 
applies it to the classification not of simple minerals, 
but of rocks, which is a science auxiliary to geology, 
and which has sometimes been called Petrology. Wliat 
we have termed Mineralogy, M. Ampere unites with 



REACTION AGAINST SENSATIONISTS. 221 

Cliemistry. "It belongs," lie says^", "to Chemistry, 
and not to Mineralogy, to inquire how many atoms of 
silicium and of oxygen compose silica; to tell us that 
its primitive form is a rhombohedron of certain angles, 
that it is called quartz, &c. ; leaving, on one hand, to 
Molecular Geometry the task of explaining the differ- 
ent secondary forms which may result from the pri- 
mitive form ; and on the other hand, leaving to Mine- 
ralogy the office of describing the different varieties of 
quartz, and the rocks in which they occur, according 
as the quartz is crystallized, transparent, coloured, 
amorphous, solid, or in sand." But we may remark, 
that by adopting this arrangement, we separate from 
Mineralogy almost all the knov/ledge, and absolutely 
all the general knowledge, which books professing to 
treat of that science have usually contained. The 
consideration of Mineralogical Classifications, which, 
as may be seen in the History of Science, is so curious 
and instructive, is forced into the domain of Chemistry, 
although many of the persons who figure in it were 
not at all properly chemists. And we lose, in this 
way, the advantage of that peculiar office which, in 
our arrangement, Mineralogy fills ; of forming a rigor- 
ous transition from the sciences of classification to 
those which consider the mathematical properties of 
bodies ; and connecting the external characters and 
the internal constitution of bodies by means of a system 
of important general truths. I conceive, therefore, 
that our disposition of this science, and our mode of 
applying the name, are far more convenient than those 
of M. Ampere. 

9, We have seen the reaction against the pure sen- 
sational doctrines operating very powerfully in England 
and in France. But it was in Germany that these 
doctrines were most decidedly rejected; and systems 
in extreme opposition to these put forth with confi- 
dence, and received with applause. Of the authors 
who gave this impulse to opinions in that country, Kant 



Ampfire, Essai, p. 210. 



222 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

was the first, and by far the most important. I liave 
in the History of Ideas (b. iii c. 3), endeavoured to ex- 
plain how he was aroused, by the skepticism of Hume, 
to examine wherein the fallacy lay which appeared to 
invalidate all reasonings from effect to cause ; and how 
this inquiry terminated in a conviction that the foun- 
dations of our reasonings on this and similar points were 
to be sought in the mind, and not in the phenomena ; — 
in the subject, and not in the object. The revolution 
in the customary mode of contemplating human know- 
ledge which Kant's opinions involved, was most com- 
plete. He himself, with no small justice, compares" 
it with the change produced by Copernicus's theory 
of the solar system. " Hitherto," he says, "men have 
assumed that all our knowledge must be regulated 
by the objects of it ; yet all attempts to make out 
anything concerning objects a priori by means of our 
conceptions," (as for instance their geometrical proper- 
ties) "must, on this foundation, be unavailing. Let 
us then try whether we cannot make out something 
more in the problems of metaphysics, by assuming 
that objects must be regulated by our knowledge, 
since this agrees better with that supposition, which 
we are prompted to make, that we can know some- 
thing of them d priori. This thought is like that of 
Copernicus, who, when he found that nothing was to 
be made of the phenomena of the heavens so long 
as everything was supposed to turn about the spec- 
tator, tried whether the matter might not be better 
explained if he made the spectator turn, and left the 
stars at rest. We may make the same essay in meta- 
physics, as to what concerns our intuitive knowledge 
respecting objects. If our apprehension of objects 
must be regulated by the properties of the objects, I 
cannot comprehend how we can possibly know any- 
thing about them d priori. But if the object, as ap- 
prehended by us, be regulated by the constitution of 
our faculties of apprehension, I can readily conceive 



11 Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, Pref. p. xv. 



REACTION AGAINST SENSATIONISTS. 2 23 

this possibility." From this he infers that our expe- 
rience must be regulated by our conceptions. 

TO. This view of the nature of knowledge soon 
superseded entirely the doctrines of the Sensational 
School among the metaphysicians of Germany. These 
philosophers did not gradually modify and reject the 
dogmas of Locke and Condillac, as was done in England 
and France^^; nor did they endeavour to ascertain 
the extent of the empire of Ideas by a careful survey 
of its several provinces, as we have been doing in 
this series of works. The German metaphysicians 
saw at once that Ideas and Things, the Subjective 
and the Objective elements of our knowledge, were, 
by Kant's system, brought into opposition and cor- 
relation, as equally real and equally indispensable. 
Seeing this, they rushed at once to the highest 
and most difficult problem of philosophy, — to deter- 
mine what this correlation is ; — to discover how Ideas 
and Things are at the same time opposite and iden- 
tical; — how the world, while it is distinct from and 
independent of us, is yet, as an object of our know- 
ledge, governed by the conditions of our thoughts. 
The attempts to solve this problem, taken in the widest 
sense, including the forms which it assumes in Morals, 
Politics, the Arts, and Religion, as well as in the 
Material Sciences, have, since that time, occupied the 
most profound speculators of Germany ; and have given 
rise to a number of systems, which, rapidly succeeding 
each other, have, each in its day, been looked upon 
as a complete solution of the problem. To trace the 
characters of these various systems, does not belong 
to the business of the present chapter : my task is 
ended when I have shown, as I have now done, how 
the progress of thought in the philosophical world, 
followed from the earliest up to the present time, has 



12 The sensational system never pass over the history of philosophy 

acquired in Germany the ascendancy in Germany, except so far as it af- 

■which it obtained in England and fects ourselves. 
France ; but I am compelled here to 



2 24 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

led to tliat recognition of the co-existence and joint 
necessity of the two opposite elements of our know- 
ledge; and when I have pointed out processes adapted 
to the extension of our knowledge, which a true view 
of its nature has suggested or may suggest. 

The latter portion of this task occupies the third 
book of the Novum Organon Renovatum. With regard 
to the recent succession of German systems of philo- 
sophy, I shall add something in a subsequent chapter : 
and I shall also venture to trace further than I have 
yet done, the bearing of the philosophy of science 
upon the theological view of the universe and the 
moral and religious condition of man. 



CHAPTER XXL 

Further Advance of the Sensational School, 
m. auguste comte. 



I SHALL now take the liberty of noticing tlie views 
published by a contemjoorary writer; not that it 
forms part of my design to offer any criticism upon 
the writings of all those who have treated of those 
subjects on which we are now employed; but because 
we can more distinctly in this noianner point out the 
contrasts and ultimate tendencies of the several sys- 
tems of opinion which have come under our survey: 
and since from among these systems we have endea- 
voured to extract and secure the portion of truth 
which remains in each, and to reject the rest, we are 
led to point out the errors on which our attention is 
thus fixed, in recent as well as older writers. 

M. Auguste Comte published in 1830 the first, and 
in 1835 the second volume of his Cours de Fhilosophie 
Positive; of which the aim is not much different from 
that of the present work, since as he states (p. viii.) 
such a title as the Philosophy of the Sciences would 
describe a part of his object, and would be inappro- 
priate only by excluding that portion (not yet pub- 
lished) which refers to speculations concerning social 
relations. 

I. M. Comte on Three States of Science. — By em- 
ploying the term Philosophic Positive, he wishes to 
distinguish the philosophy involved in the present 
state of our sciences from the previous forms of human 
knowledge. For according to him, each branch of 
knowledge passes, in the course of man's history, 
through three different states; it is first theological, 
then metaphysical, then positive. By the latter term 



il 



226 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

lie implies a state which includes nothing but general 
representations of facts ; — phenomena arranged accord- 
ing to relations of succession and resemblance. This 
" positive philosophy" rejects all inquiry after causes, 
which inquiry he holds to be void of sense ^ and inac- 
cessible. All such conceptions belong to the " meta- 
physical " state of science which deals with abstract 
forces, real entities, and the like. Still more completely 
does he reject, as altogether antiquated and absurd, 
the "theological" view of phenomena. Indeed he 
conceives^ that any one's own consciousness of what 
passes within himself is sufficient to convince him of 
the truth of the law of the three phases through which 
knowledge must pass. " Does not each of us," he 
says, *'in contemplating his own history, recollect 
that he has been successively a theologian in his in- 
fancy, a metaphysician in his youth, and a physicist in 
his ripe age % This may easily be verified for all men 
who are up to the level of their time." 

It is plain from such statements, and from the whole 
course of his work, that M. Comte holds, in their most 
rigorous form, the doctrines to which the speculations 
of Locke and his successors led; and which tended, 
as we have seen, to the exclusion of all ideas except 
those of number and resemblance. As M. Comte 
refuses to admit into his philosophy the fundamental 
idea of Cause, he of course excludes most of the other 
ideas, which are, as we endeavoured to show, the 
foundations of science; such as the ideas of Media by 
which secondary qualities are made known to us; the 
ideas of Chemical Attraction, of Polar Forces, and 
the like. He would reduce all science to the mere 
expression of laws of phenomena, expressed in formulae 
of space, time, and number; and would condemn as 
unmeaning, and as belonging to an obsolete state of 
science, all endeavours to determine the causes of 
phenomena, or even to refer them to any of the other 
ideas just mentioned. 



» L p. 14. 2 i. p. 7. 



M. AUGUSTE COMTE. 22/ 

2. M. Comte rejects the Search of Causes. — In 
a previous work^ I have shown, I trust decisively, 
that it is the genuine office of science to inquire 
into the causes as well as the laws of phenomena; 
— that such an inquiry cannot be avoided j and 
that it has been the source of almost all the science 
we possess. I need not here repeat the arguments 
there urged; but I may make a remark or two upon 
M. Comte's hypothesis, that all science is first " meta- 
physical " and then "positive;" since it is in virtue 
of this hypothesis that he rejects the investigation of 
causes, as worthy only of the infancy of science. All 
discussions concerning ideas, M. Comte would condemn 
as " metaphysical," and would consider as mere pre- 
ludes to positive philosophy. Now I venture to assert, 
on the contrary, that discussions concerning ideas, and 
real discoveries, have in every science gone hand in 
hand. There is no science in which the pretended 
order of things can be pointed out. There is no science 
in which the discoveries of the laws of phenomena, 
when once begun, have been carried on independently 
of discussions concerning ideas. There is no science 
in which the expression of the laws of phenomena can 
at this time dispense with ideas which have acquired 
their place in science in virtue of metaphysical con- 
siderations. There is no science in which the most 
active disquisitions concerning ideas did not come 
after, not before, the first discovery of laws of pheno- 
mena. In Astronomy, the discovery of the pheno- 
menal laws of the ejoicyclical motions of the heavens 
led to assumptions of the metaphysical principle of 
equable circular motions : Kepler's discoveries would 
never have been made but for his metaphysical notions. 
These discoveries of the laws of phenomena did not 
lead immediately to Newton's theory, because a century 
of metaphysical discussions was requisite as a prepa- 
ration. Newton then discovered, not merely a law 
of phenomena, but a cause; and therefore he was the 



Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xL c. vii. , 

Q2 



228 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

greatest of discoverers. The same is the case in Op- 
tics; the ancients possessed some share of our know- 
ledge of facts; but meddled little with the metaphy- 
sical reasonings of the subject. In modern times 
when men began to inquire into the nature of light, 
they soon extended their knowledge of its laws. When 
this series of discoveries had come to a pause, a new 
series of brilliant discoveries of laws of phenomena 
went on, inseparably connected with a new series of 
views of the nature and cause of light. In like man- 
ner, the most modern discoveries in chemistry involve 
indispensably the idea of polar forces. The metaphy- 
sics (in M. Comte's sense) of each subject advances in 
a parallel line with the knowledge of physical laws. 
The Explication of Conceptions must go on, as we 
have already shown, at the same rate as the Colligation 
of Facts. 

M. Comte will say* that Newton's discovery of 
gravitation only consists in exhibiting the astronomical 
phenomena of the universe as one single fact under 
different points of view. But this fact involves the 
idea of /orce, that is, of cause. And that this idea 
is not a mere modification of the ideas of time and 
space, we have shown : if it were so, how could it 
lead to the axiom that attraction is mutual, an indis- 
pensable part of the Newtonian theory? M. Comte 
says^ that we do not know what attraction is, since we 
can only define it by identical phrases : but this is just 
as true of space, or time, or motion; and is in fact 
exactly the characteristic of a fundamental idea. We 
do not obtain such ideas from definitions, but we possess 
them not the less truly because we cannot define 
them. 

That M. Comte's hypothesis is historically false, is 
obvious by such examples as I have mentioned. Meta- 
physical discussions have been essential steps in the 
progress of each science. If we arbitrarily reject all 
these portions of scientific history as useless trifling, 



4 P. IS. 5 r. l6. 



M. AUGUSTE COMTE. 229 

belonging to tlie first rude attempts at knowledge, we 
shall not only distort the progress of things, but per- 
vert the plainest facts. Of this we have an example 
in M. Comte's account of Kepler's mechanical specu- 
lations. We have seen, in the History of Physical 
Astronomy, that Kej)ler's second law, (that the planets 
describe areas about the sun proportional to the times,) 
was proved by him, by means of calculations founded 
on the observations of Tycho ; but that the mechani- 
cal reason of it was not assigned till a later period, 
when it appeared as the first proposition of Newton's 
Principia. It is plain from the writings of Kepler, 
that it was impossible for him to show how this law 
resulted from the forces which were in action; since 
the forces which he considered were not those tending 
to the centre, which really determine the property in 
question, but forces exerted by the sun in tJie direction 
of the iilaneis motion^ without which forces Kepler 
conceived that the motion could not go on. In short, 
the stat€ of mechanical science in Kepler's time was 
such that no demonstration of the law could be given. 
The terms in which such a demonstration must be 
expressed had not at that time acquired a precise 
significance ; and it was in virtue of many subsequent 
7)ietaj)hysical discussions (as M. Comte would tenn 
them) that these terms became capable of expressing 
sound mechanical reasoning. Kepler did indeed pre- 
tend to assign what he called a "physical proof" of 
his law, depending upon this, that the sun's force is 
less at greater distances; a condition which does not 
at all influence the result. Thus Kepler's reason for 
his law proves nothing but the confusion of thought in 
which he was involved on such subjects. Yet M. Comte 
assigns to Kepler the credit of having proved this law 
by sound mechanical reasoning, as well as established 
it as a matter of fact^ " This discovery by Kepler,'* 



6 M. Comte's statement is so en- "Le second thgorSme g§n§ral de 

tirely at variance with the fact that dynamique consiste dans le celebre 

I must quote it here. (Phil. Pos. et important prineipe des aires, dont 

voL L p. 705.) le premiere idee est due h. Kepler, 



t\t 



230 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

he adds, " is the more remarkable, inasmuch as it oc- 
curred before the science of dynamics had really been 
created by Galileo." We may remark that inasmuch 
as M. Comte perceived this incongruity in the facts as 
he stated them, it is the more remarkable that he did 
not examine them more carefully. 

3. Causes in Physics. — The condemnation of the 
inquiry into causes which is conveyed in M. Comte' s 
notion of the three stages of Science, he again ex- 
presses more in detail, in stating^ what he calls his 
Fundamental theory of hypotheses. This "theory" is, that 
we may employ hypotheses in our natural philosophy, 
but these hypotheses must always be such as admit of 
a positive verification. We must have no suppositions 
concerning the agents by which effects are produced. 
All such suppositions have an anti-scientific charac- 
ter, and can only impede the real progress of physics. 
There can be no use in the ethers and imaginary fiuids 
to which some persons refer the phenomena of heat, 
light, electricity and magnetism. And in agreement 
with this doctrine, M. Comte in his account^ of the 



qui decouvrit et d§montra forte sim- sante de I'aetion surle corps d'un force 
plement cette proprigte pour le cas dirigge sans cesse vers ce point." 
du mouvement d'une molecule u- There is not a trace of the above 
nique, ou en d'autres terms, d'un propositions in the work De Stelld 
corps dont tous les points se meu- Martis, which contains Kepler's dis- 
vent identiquement. Kepler gtablit, covery of his law, nor, I am con- 
par les considerations les plus gle- vinced, in any other of Kepler's 
mentaires, qui si la force accglgratrice works. He is everywhere constant 
totale dont une molecule est animee to his conceptions of the magnetic 
tend constamment vers un point fixg, virtue residing in the sun, by means 
le rayon vecteur du mobUe decrit of which the sun, revolving on his 
autour de ce point des aires egales en axis, carries the planets round with 
temps egaux, de telle sorte que I'aire him. M. Comte's statement so exactly 
dgcrite au bout d'un temps quel- expresses Newton's propositions, that 
conque crolt proportionellement a ce one is led to suspect some extraordi- 
temps. II fit voir en outre que reci- nary mistake, by which what should 
proquement, si une semblable rela- have been said of the one was trans- 
tion a gt6 verifiee dans le mouve- ferred to the other, 
ment d'un corps par rapport a un 1 VoL iL p. 433, 
certain point, c'est une preuve suffi- 8 Vol. iL 640. 



M. AUGUSTS COMTE. 23! 

Science of Optics, condemns, as utterly unphiloso- 
phical and absurd, both the theory of emission and 
that of undulation. 

To this we reply, that theory of one kind or other 
is indispensable to the expression of the phenomena ; 
and that when the laws are expressed, and apparently 
explained, by means of a theory, to forbid us to in- 
quire whether it be really true or false, is a pedantic 
and capricious limitation of our knowledge, to which 
the intellect of man neither can nor should submit. 
If any one holds the adoption of one or other of these 
theories to be indifferent, let him express the laws of 
phenomena of diffraction in terms of the theory of 
emission ^ If any one rejects the doctrine of undula- 
tion, let him point out some other way of connecting 
double refraction with polarization. And surely no 
man of science will contend that the beautiful branch 
of science which refers to that connexion is not a 
portion of our positive knowledge. 

M. Comte's contempt for the speculations of the 
undulationists seems to have prevented his acquainting 
himself with their reasonings, and even with the laws 
of phenomena on which they have reasoned, although 
these form by far the most striking and beautiful 
addition which Science has received in modern times. 
He adduces, as an insuperable objection to the undu- 
latory theory, a difficulty which is fully removed by 
calculation in every work on the subject: — the ex- 
istence of shadow^". He barely mentions the subject of 
diffraction, and Young's law of interferences ; — speaks 
of Fresnel as having applied this principle to the 
phenomena of coloured rings, "on which the ingenious 
labours of JSTewton left much to desire;" as if Fresnel's 
labours on this subject had been the supplement of 
those of Newton: and after regretting that "this 
principle of interferences has not yet been distinctly 



9 I venture to offer this problem ;— any one who holds such hypothesis 

to express the laws of the phenomena to be unphilosophical : 

of diffraction without the hypothesis W ii. p, 641. 
of uudulations ;— as a challenge to 



232 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

disentangled from chemical conceptions on the nature 
of light," concludes his chapter. He does not even 
mention the phenomena of dipolar ization, of circular 
and elliptical polarization, or of the optical properties 
of crystals ; discoveries of laws of phenomena quite as 
remarkable as any which can be mentioned. 

M. Comte's favourite example of physical research 
is Thermotics, and especially Fourier's researches with 
regard to heat. It is shown ^^ in the History of Ther- 
motics, that the general phenomena of radiation re- 
quired the assumption of a fluid to express them; 
as appears in the theory of exchanges^^. And the ex- 
planation of the principal laws of radiation, which 
Fourier gives, depends upon the conception of material 
molecular radiation. The flux of caloric, of which 
Fourier speaks, cannot be conceived otherwise than as 
implying a material flow. M. Comte apologizes ^^ for 
this expression, as too figurative, and says that it 
merely indicates a fact. But what is the flow of a 
current of fluid except a fact? And is it not evident 
that without such expressions, and the ideas corre- 
sponding to them, Fourier could neither have conveyed 
nor conceived his theory? 

In concluding this discussion it must be recollected, 
that though it is a most narrow and untenable rule to 
say that we will admit no agency of ethers and fluids 
into philosophy ; yet the reality of such agents is only 
to be held in the way, and to the extent, which the 
laws of phenomena indicate. It is not only allowable, 
but inevitable to assume, as the vehicle of heat and 
light, a medium possessing some of the properties of 
more familiar kinds of matter. But the idea of such 
a medium, which we possess, and on which we cannot 
but reason, can be fully developed only by an assi- 
duous study of the cases in which it is applicable. It 
may be, that as science advances, all our knowledge 
may converge to one general and single aspect of the 



11 ii. p. 673. 12 Hist. Ind. Sc. n. 489, b. x. c. i 

13 ii. p. 561. 



M. AUGUSTE COMTE. 233 

•universe. We abandon and reject this hope, if we 
refuse to admit those ideas which must be our step- 
ping-stones in advancing to such a point : and we no 
less frustrate such an expectation, if we allow ourselves 
to imagine that from our present position we can stride 
at once to the summit. 

4. Causes in other Sciences. — But if it is, in the 
sciences just mentioned, impracticable to reduce our 
knowledge to laws of phenomena alone, without refer- 
ring to causes, media, and other agencies; how much 
more plainly is it impossible to confine our thoughts 
to phenomena, and to laws of succession and resem- 
blance, in other sciences, as chemistry, physiology, and 
geology? Who shall forbid us, or why should we be 
forbidden, to inquire whether chemical and galvanic 
forces are identical; whether irritability is a peculiar 
vital power; whether geological causes have been uni- 
form or paroxysmal? To exclude such inquiries, would 
be to secure ourselves from the poison of error by 
abstaining from the banquet of truth : — it would be to 
attempt to feed our minds with the meagre diet of 
space and number, because we may find too delightful 
a relish in such matters as cause and end, symmetry 
and affinity, organization and development. 

Thus M. Comte's arrangement of the progress of 
science as successively metaphysical and positive, is 
contrary to history in fact, and contrary to sound phi- 
losophy in principle. Nor is there any better founda- 
tion for his statement that theological views are to be 
found only in the rude infantine condition of human 
knowledge, and vanish as science advances. Even in 
material sciences this is not the case. We have shown 
in the chapter on Final Causes, that physiologists have 
been directed in their remarks by the conviction of a 
purpose in every part of the structure of animals ; and 
that this idea, which had its rise after the first obser- 
vations, has gone on constantly gaining strength and 
clearness, so that it is now the basis of a large portion 
of the science. We have seen, too, in the Book on the 
palsetiological sciences, that the researches of that class 
do by no means lead us to reject an origin of the series 



2 34 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

of events, nor to suppose this origin to be included in 
the series of natui-al laws. Science has not at all 
shown any reason for denying either the creation or 
the purpose of the universe. 

This is true of those aspects of the universe which 
have become the subjects of rigorous science : but how 
small a portion of the whole do they form ! Especially 
how minute a proportion does our knowledge bear to 
our ignorance, if we admit into science, as M. Comte 
advises, only the laws of phenomena! Even in the 
best explored fields of science, how few such laws do 
we know ! Meteorology, climate, terrestrial magnetism, 
the colours and other properties of bodies, the con- 
ditions of musical and articulate sound, and a thou- 
sand other facts of physics, are not defined by any 
known laws. In physiology we may readily convince 
ourselves how little we know of laws, since we can 
hardly study one species without discovering some un- 
guessed property, or apply the microscope without 
seeing some new structure in the best known organs. 
And when we go on to social and moral and political 
matters, we may well doubt whether any one single 
rigorous rule of phenomena has ever been stated, al- 
though on such subjects man's ideas have been busily 
and eagerly working ever since his origin. What a 
wanton and baseless assumption it would be, then, to 
reject those suggestions of a Governor of the universe 
which we derive from man's moral and spii-itual na- 
ture, and from the institutions of society, because we 
fancy we see in the small field of our existing " positive 
knowledge" a tendency to exclude " theological views!" 
Because we can explain the motion of the stars by a 
general Law which seems to imply no hyperphysical 
agency, and can trace a few more limited laws in 
other properties of matter, we are exhorted to reject 
convictions irresistibly suggested to us by our bodies 
and our souls, by history and antiquities, by conscience 
and human law. 

5. M. Comics 'practical philosophy. — It is not 
merely as a speculative doctrine that M. Comte urges 
the necessity of our thus following the guidance of 



M. AUGUSTE COMTE. 235 

"positive philosopliy." The fevered and revolutionary 
condition of human society at present arises, according 
to him^*, from the simultaneous employment of three 
kinds of philosophy radically incompatible; — theolo- 
gical, metaphysical, and positive philosophy. The 
remedy for the evil is to reject the two former, and to 
refer everything to that positive philosophy, of which 
the destined triumph cannot be doubtful. In like 
manner, our European education ^^, still essentially 
theological, metaphysical, and literary, must be re^ 
placed by a positive education, suited to the spirit of 
our epoch. 

With these practical consequences of M. Comte's 
philosophy we are not here concerned : but the notice 
of them may serve to show how entii-ely the rejection 
of the theological view pervades his system ; and how 
closely this rejection is connected with the principles 
which lead him also to reject the fundamental ideas of 
the sciences as we have presented them. 

6. M. Comte on Hypotheses. — In the detail of 
M. Comte's work, I do not find any peculiar or novel 
remarks on the induction by which the sciences are 
formed ; except we may notice, as such, his permission 
of hypotheses to the inquirer, already referred to. 
"There can only be," he says^^, "two general modes 
fitted to reveal to us, in a direct and entirely rational 
manner, the true law of any phenomenon; — either the 
immediate analysis of this phenomenon, or its exact 
and evident relation to some more extended law, pre- 
viously established; — in a word, induction, or deduc- 
tion. But both these ways would certainly be insuf- 
ficient, even with regai^d to the simplest phenomenon, 
in the eyes of any one who fully comprehends the 
essential difficulties of the intimate study of nature, if 
we did not often begin by anticipating the result, and 
making a provisory supposition, at first essentially 
conjectui-al, even with respect to some of the notions 
which constitute the final object of inquiiy. Hence 



1* L 50. 15 i, 41. 10 li. 433. 



236 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

tlie introduction, which is strictly indispensable, of 
hypotheses in natural philosophy." We have already 
seen that the "permissio intellectus" had been noticed 
as a requisite step in discovery, as long before as the 
time of Bacon. 

7. M. Comte^s Classification of Sciences. — I do not 
think it necessary to examine in detail M. Comte's 
views of the philosophy of the different sciences ; but 
it may illustrate the object of the present work, to 
make a remark upon his attempt to establish a distinc- 
tion between physical and chemical science. This dis- 
tinction he makes to consist in three points ^%* — that 
Physics considers general and Chemistry special pro- 
perties ; — that Physics considers masses and Chemistry 
molecules; — that in Physics the mode of arrangement 
of the molecules remains constant, while in Chemistry 
this arrangement is necessarily altered. M. Comte 
however allows tha.t these lines of distinction are vague 
and insecure; for, among many others, magnetism, a 
special property, belongs to physics, and breaks down 
his first criterion; and molecular attractions are a con- 
stant subject of speculation in physics, so that the 
second distinction cannot be insisted on. To which 
we may add that the greater portion of chemistry does 
not attend at all to the arrangement of the molecules, 
so that the third character is quite erroneous. The 
real distinction of these branches of science is, as we 
have seen, the fundamental ideas which they employ. 
Physics deals with relations of space, time, and num- 
ber, media, and scales of qualities, according to intens- 
ity and other differences; while chemistry has for its 
subject elements and attractions as shown in compo- 
sition ; and polarity, though in different senses, belongs 
to both. The failure of this attempt of M. Comte at dis- 
tinguishing these provinces of science by their objects, 
may be looked upon as an illustration of the impossi- 
bility of establishing a philosophy of the sciences on 
^ny other ground than the ideas which they involve. 



17 PhU. Pos. iL 392—398. 



M. AUGUSTE COMTE. 237 

"We have thus traced to its extreme point, so far as 
the nature of science is concerned, one of those two 
antagonistic opinions, of which the struggle began in 
the outset of philosophy, and has continued during the 
whole of her progress; — namely, the opinions which 
respectively make our sensations and our ideas the 
origin of our knowledge. The former, if it be consist- 
ent with itself, must consider all knowledge of causes 
as impossible, since no sensation can give us the idea 
of cause. And when this opinion is applied to science, 
it reduces it to the mere investigation of laws of phe- 
nomena, according to relations of space, time, and 
number. I pui'posely abstain, as far as possible, from 
the consideration of the other consequences, not strictly 
belonging to the physical sciences, which were drawn 
from the doctrine that all our ideas are only trans- 
formed sensations. The materialism, the atheism, the 
sensualist morality, the anarchical polity, which some 
of the disciples of the Sensational School erected upon 
the fundamental dogmas of their sect, do not belong to 
our present subject, and are matters too weighty to be 
treated of as mere accessories. 



The above Remarks were written before I had seen 
the third volume of M. Comte's work, or the subse- 
quent volumes. But I do not find, in anything which 
those volumes contain, any ground for altering what I 
have written. Indeed they are occupied altogether 
with subjects which do not come within the field of my 
present speculations. 



CHAPTER XXII. 
Mk. Mill's Logic \ 



THE History of the Inductive Sciences was pub- 
lislied iu 1837, and tlie Philosophy of the Induc- 
tive Sciences in 1840. In 1843 ^^' ^^^^ published his 
System of Logic, in which he states that without the 
aid derived from the facts and ideas in my volumes, 
the corresponding portion of his own would most pro- 
bably not have been written, and quotes parts of what 
I have said with commendation. He also, however, 
dissents from me on several important and funda- 
mental points, and argues against what I have said 
thereon. I conceive that it may tend to bring into a 
clearer light the doctrines which I have tried to estab- 
lish, and the truth of them, if I discuss some of the 
differences between us, which I shall proceed to do^ 

Mr. Mill's work has had, for a work of its abstruse 
character, a circulation so extensive, and admirers so 
numerous and so fervent, that it needs no commenda- 
tion of mine. But if my main concern at present had 
not been with the points in which Mr. Mill differs 
from me, I should have had great pleasure in pointing 
out passages, of which there are many, in which Mr. 
Mill appears to me to have been very happy in pro- 
moting or in expressing philosophical truth. 

There is one portion of his work indeed which 
tends to give it an interest of a wider kind than be- 



[1 A System of Logic, Ratiodnative 2 These Remarks were published 

and' Inductive, being a connected vieio in 1849, under the title Of Induction, 

of the Principles of Evidence, and of v:ith especial reference to Mr. J. . 

the Methods of Scientific: Investiga- Mill's System of Logic 
tion. By John Stuart Mill.] 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 239 

longs to ttat merely scientific truth to which I pur- 
posely and resolutely confined my speculations in the 
works to which I have referred. Mr. Mill has intro- 
duced into his work a direct and extensive considera- 
tion of the modes of dealing with moral and political 
as well as physical questions; and I have no doubt 
that this part of his book has, for many of his readers, 
a more lively interest than any other. Such a com- 
prehensive scheme seems to give to doctrines respect- 
ing science a value and a purpose which they cannot 
have, so long as they are restricted to mere material 
sciences. I still retain the opinion, however, upon 
which I formerly acted, that the philosophy of science 
is to be extracted from the portions of science which 
are universally allowed to be most certainly estab- 
lished, and that those are the physical sciences. I am 
very far from saying, or thinking, that there is no 
such thing as Moral and Political Science, or that no 
method can be suggested for its promotion; but I 
think that by attempting at present to include the 
Moral Sciences in the same formulae with the Phy- 
sical, we open far more controversies than v'e close; 
and that in the moral as in the physical sciences, the 
first step towards showing how truth is to be disco- 
vered, is to study some portion of it which is assented 
to so as to be beyond controversy. 

I. What is Induction? — i. Confining myself, then, 
to the material sciences, I shall proceed to oflfer my 
remarks on Induction with especial reference to Mr. 
Mill's work. And in order that we may, as I have 
said, proceed as intelligibly as possible, let us begin 
by considering what we mean by Induction, as a mode 
of obtaining truth; and let us note whether there is 
any difiference between Mr. Mill and me on this sub- 
ject. 

" For the purposes of the present inquiry," Mr. Mill 
says (i. 347^), "Induction may be defined the opera- 



8 M7 references are throughout the vohime and the page of Mr. Mill's 
(except when otherwise expressed) to first cditiou of his Lo{jic. 



240 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

tion of discovering and forming general propositions :" 
meaning, as appears by the context, the discovery of 
them from particular facts. He elsewhere (i. 370) 
terms it " generalization from experience :" and again 
he speaks of it with greater precision as the inference 
of a more general proposition from less general ones. 

2. Now to these definitions and descriptions I 
assent as far as they goj though, as I shall have to 
remark, they appear to me to leave unnoticed a fea- 
ture which is very important, and which occurs in all 
cases of Induction, so far as we are concerned with it. 
Science, then, consists of general propositions, inferred 
from particular facts, or from less general propositions, 
by Induction; and it is our object to discern the na- 
ture and laws of Induction in this sense. That the 
propositions are general, or are more general than the 
facts from which they are inferred, is an indispensable 
part of the notion of Induction, and is essential to any 
discussion of the process, as the mode of arriving at 
Science, that is, at a body of general truths. 

3. I am obliged therefore to dissent from Mr. Mill 
when he includes, in his notion of Induction, the pro- 
cess by which we arrive at individual facts from other 
facts of the same order of particularity. 

Such inference is, at any rate, not Induction alone; 
if it be Induction at all, it is Induction applied to an 
example. 

For instance, it is a general law, obtained by In- 
duction from particular facts, that a body falling ver- 
tically downwards from rest, describes spaces propor- 
tional to the squares of the times. But that a par- 
ticular body will fall through 16 feet in one second 
and 64 feet in two seconds, is not an induction simply, 
it is a result obtained by ajDplying the inductive law 
to a particular case. 

But further, such a process is often not induction 
at all. That a ball striking another ball directly wiU 
communicate to it as much momentum as the striking 
ball itself loses, is a law established by induction : but 
if, from habit or practical skill, I make one billiard- 
ball strike another, so as to produce the velocity which 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 24I 

I wish, witliout knowing or thinking of the general 
law, the term Induction cannot then be rightly ap- 
plied. If I know the law and act upon it, I have in 
my mind both the general induction and its particular 
application. But if I act by the ordinary billiard- 
player's skill, without tliinking of momentum or law, 
there is no Induction in the case. 

4. This distinction becomes of importance, in re- 
ference to Mr. Mill's doctrine, because he has extended 
his use of the term Induction, not only to the cases in 
which the general induction is consciously applied to 
a particular instance; but to the cases in which the 
particular instance is dealt with by means of expe- 
rience, in that rude sense in which experience can be 
asserted of brutes ; and in which, of course, we can in 
no way imagine that the law is possessed or under- 
stood, as a general proposition. He has thus, as I 
conceive, overlooked the broad and essential difference 
between speculative knowledge and practical action; 
and has introduced cases which are quite foreign to 
the idea of science, alongside with cases from which 
we may hope to obtain some views of the nature of 
science and the processes by which it must be formed. 

5. Thus (ii. 232) he says, "This inference of one 
particular fact from another is a case of induction. 
It is of this sort of induction that brutes are capable." 
And to the same purpose he had previously said (i. 
251), "He [the burnt child who shuns the fire] is not 
generalizing: he is inferring a particular from parti- 
culars. In the same way also, brutes reason... not 
only the burnt child, but the burnt dog, dreads the 
fire." 

6. This confusion, (for such it seems to me,) of 
knowledge with practical tendencies, is expressed more 
in detail in other places. Thus he says (i. 118), "I 
cannot dig the ground unless I have an idea of the 
ground and of a spade, and of all the other things I 
am operating upon." 

7. This appears to me to be a use of words which 
can only tend to confuse our idea of knowledge by ob- 
literating all that is distinctive in human knowledge. 



242 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

It seems to me quite false to say that I cannot dig the 
ground, unless I have an idea of the ground and of my 
spade. Are we to say that we cannot walk the ground, 
unless we have an idea of the ground, and of our feet, 
and of our shoes, and of the muscles of our legs % Are 
we to say that a mole cannot dig the ground, unless 
he has an idea of the ground and' of the snout and 
paws with which he digs it % Are we to say that a 
pholas cannot perforate a rock, unless he have an idea 
of the rock, and of the acid with which he corrodes it % 

8. This appears to me, as I have said, to be a line 
of speculation which can lead to nothing but confusion. 
The knowledge concerning which I wish to inquire is 
human knowledge. And in order that I may have 
any chance of success in the inquiry, I find it neces- 
sary to single out that kind of knowledge which is 
especially and distinctively human. Hence, I pass by, 
in this part of my investigation, all the knowledge^ if 
it is to be so called, which man has in no other way 
than brutes have it ; — all that merely shows itself in 
action. For though action may be modified by habit, 
and habit by experience, in animals as well as in men, 
such experience, so long as it retains that merely prac- 
tical form, is no part of the materials of science. 
Knowledge in a general form, is alone knowledge for 
that purpose ; and to tliat^ therefore, I must confine 
my attention ; at least till I have made some progress 
in ascertaining its nature and laws, and am thus pre- 
pared to compare such knowledge, — human knowledge 
properly so called, — with mere animal tendencies to 
action ; or even with practical skill which does not 
include, as for the most part practical skill does not 
include, speculative knowledge. 

9. And thus, I accept Mr. Mill's definition of In- 
duction only in its first and largest form ; and reject, 
as useless and mischievous for our purposes, his exten- 
sion of the term to the practical influence which expe- 
rience of one fact exercises upon a creature dealing 
with similar facts. Such influence cannot be resolved 
into ideas and induction, without, as I conceive, mak- 
ing all our subsequent investigation vague and hete- 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 243 

rogeneous, indefinite and inconclusive. If we must 
speak of animals as learning from experience, we may 
at least abstain from applying to them terms wliicli 
imply that they learn, in the same way in which men 
learn astronomy from the stars, and chemistry from 
the efiects of mixture and heat. And the same may 
be said of the language which is to be used concerning 
what men learn, when their learning merely shows 
itself in action, and does not exist as a general thought. 
Induction must not be applied to such cases. Induc- 
tion must be confined to cases where we have in our 
minds general propositions, in order that the sci- 
ences, which are our most instructive examples of the 
process we have to consider, may be, in any definite 
and proper sense. Inductive Sciences. 

10. Perhaps some persons may be inclined to say 
that this difference of opinion, as to the extent of 
meaning which is to be given to the term Induction, 
is a question merely of words ; a matter of definition 
only. This is a mode in which men in our time often 
seem inclined to dispose of philosophical questions; 
thus evading the task of forming an opinion upon such 
questions, while they retain the air of looking at the 
subject from a more comprehensive point of view. 
But as I have elsewhere said, such questions of defini- 
tion are never questions of definition merely. A pro- 
position is always implied along with the definition ; 
and the truth of the proposition depends upon the 
settlement of the definition. This is the case in the 
present instance. We are speaking of Induction, and 
we mean that kind of Induction by which the sciences 
now existing among men have been constructed. On 
this account it is, that we cannot include, in the mean- 
ing of the term, mere practical tendencies or practical 
habits ; for science is not constructed of these. No 
accumulation of these would make up any of the ac- 
knowledged sciences. The elements of such sciences 
are something of a kind different from practical habits. 
The elements of such sciences are principles which we 
know; truths which can be contemplated as being 
true. Practical habits, practical skill, instincts and 

B 2 



244 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

the like, appear in action, and in action only. Such 
endowments or acquirements show themselves when 
the occasion for action arrives, and then, show them- 
selves in the act ; without being put, or being capable 
of being put, in the form of truths contemplated by the 
intellect. But the elements and materials of Science 
are necessary truths contemplated by the intellect. It 
is by consisting of such elements- and such materials, 
that Science is Science. Hence a use of the term In- 
duction which requires us to obliterate this distinction, 
must make it impossible for us to arrive at any con- 
sistent and intelligible view of the nature of Science, 
and of the mental process by which Sciences come into 
being. We must, for the purpose which Mr. Mill and 
I have in common, retain his larger and more philo- 
sophical definition of Induction, — that it is the infer- 
ence of a more general proposition from less general 
ones. 

1 1. Perhaps, again, some persons may say, that 
practical skill and practical experience lead to science, 
and may therefore be included in the term Induction, 
which describes the formation of science. But to this 
we reply, that these things lead to science as occasions 
only, and do not form part of science ; and that sci- 
ence begins then only when we look at the facts in a 
general point of view. This distinction is essential to 
the philosophy of science. The rope-dancer may, by 
his performances, suggest, to himself or to others, pro- 
perties of the center of gravity ; but this is so, because 
man has a tendency to speculate and to think of gene- 
ral truths, as well as a tendency to dance on a rope on 
special occasions, and to acquire skill in such dancing 
by practice. The rope-dancer does not dance by In- 
duction, any more than the dancing dog does. To 
apply the terms Science and Induction to such cases, 
carries us into the regions of metaphor; as when we 
call birds of passage " wise meteorologists," or the bee 
"a natural chemist, who turns the flower-dust into 
honey." This is very well in poetry : but for our pur- 
poses we must avoid recognizing these cases as really 
belonging to the sciences of meteorology and chemis- 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 245 

try, — as really cases of Induction. Induction for us 
is general propositions, contemplated as such, derived 
from particulars. 

Science may result yro?72, experience and observation 
hy Induction; but Induction is not therefore the same 
thing as experience and observation. InductioD is 
experience or observation co^asciously looked at in a 
general form. This consciousness and generality are 
necessary parts of that knowledge which is science. 
And accordingly, on the other hand, science cannot 
result from mere Instinct, as distinguished from Rea- 
son; because Instinct by its nature is not conscious 
and general, but operates blindly and unconsciously in 
particular cases, the actor not seeing or thinking of 
the rule which he obeys. 

12. A little further on I shall endeavour to show 
that not only a general thought, but a general word or 
phrase is a requisite element in Induction. This doc- 
trine, of course, still more decidedly excludes the case 
of animals, and of mere practical knowledge in man. 
A burnt child dreads the fire ; but reason must be 
unfolded, before the child learns to understand the 
words "fire will hurt you." The burnt dog never 
thus learns to understand words. And this difference 
points to an entirely different state of thought in the 
two cases : or rather, to a difference between a state of 
rational thought on the one hand, and of mere prac- 
tical instinct on the other. 

13. Besides this difference of speculative thought 
and practical instinct which thus are, as appears to me, 
confounded in Mr. IMill's philosophy, in such a way as 
tends to destroy all coherent views of human know- 
ledge, there is another set of cases to which Mr. Mill 
applies the term Induction, and to which it appears to 
me to be altogether inapplicable. He employs it to 
describe the mode in which superstitious men, in igno- 
rant ages, were led to the opinion that striking natu- 
ral events presaged or accompanied calamities. Thus 
he says (i. 389), " The opinion so long prevalent that 
a comet or any other unusual appearance in the 
heavenly regions was the precursor of calamities to 



246 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

mankind, or at least to those who witnessed it; the be- 
lief in the oracles of Delphi and Dodona ; the reliance 
on astrology, or on the weather-prophecies in almanacs ; 
were doubtless inductions supposed to be grounded on 
experience f and he speaks of these insufficient induc- 
tions being extinguished by the stronger inductions 
subsequently obtained by scientific inquiry. And in 
like manner, he says in another place (i. 367), " Let us 
now compare different predictions : the first, that 
eclipses will occur whenever one planet or satellite is 
so situated as to cast its shadow upon another : the 
second, that they will occur whenever some great 
calamity is impending over mankind." 

14. Now I cannot see how anything but confusion 
can arise from applying the term Induction to super- 
stitious fancies like those here mentioned. They are 
not imperfect truths, but entire falsehoods. Of that, 
Mr. Mill and I are agreed: how then can they ex- 
emplify the progress towards truth ? They were not 
collected from the facts by seeking a law of their 
occurrence; but were suggested by an imagination of 
the anger of superior powers shown by such deviations 
from the ordinary course of nature. If we are to speak 
of inductions to any purpose, they must be such induc- 
tions as represent the facts, in some degree at least. 
It is not meant, I presume, that these opinions are in 
any degree true : to what purpose then are they ad- 
duced % If I were to hold that my dreams predict or 
conform to the motions of the stars or of the clouds, 
would this be an induction? It would be so, as much 
one as those here so denominated : yet what but con- 
fusion could arise from classing it among scientific 
truths? Mr. Mill himself has explained (ii. 389) the way 
in which such delusions as the prophecies of almanac- 
makers, and the like, obtain credence; namely, by the 
greater effect which the positive instances produce on 
ordinary minds in comparison with the negative, when 
the rule has once taken possession of their thoughts. 
And this being, as he says, the recognized explanation 
of such cases, why should we not leave them to their 
due place, and not confound and perplex the whole of 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 247 

our investigation by elevating them to the rank of 
"inductions" 1 The very condemnation of such opinions 
is that they are not at all inductive. When we have 
made any progress in our investigation of the nature 
of science, to attempt to drive us back to the weari- 
some discussion of such elementary points as these, is 
to make progi-ess hopeless. 

11. Induction or Description? — 15. In the cases 
hitherto noticed, Mr. Mill extends the term Induction, 
as I think, too widely, and applies it to cases to which 
it is not rightly applicable. I have now to notice a 
case of an opposite kind, in which he does not apply it 
where I do, and condemns me for using it in such 
a case. I had spoken of Kepler's discovery of the 
Law, that the planets move round the sun in ellipses, 
as an example of Induction. The separate facts of any 
planet (Mars, for instance,) being in certain places at 
certain times, are all included in the general proposi- 
tion which Kepler discovered, that Mars describes an 
ellipse of a certain form and position. This appears to 
me a very simple but a very distinct example of the 
operation of discovering general propositions; general, 
that is, with reference to particular facts ; which opera- 
tion Mr. Mill, as well as myself, says is Induction. But 
Mr. Mill denies this operation in this case to be Induc- 
tion at all (i. 357). I should not have been prepared 
for this denial by the previous parts of Mr. Mill's book, 
for he had said just before (i. 350), "such facts as the 
magnitudes of the bodies of the solar system, their 
distances from each other, the figure of the earth and 
its rotation... are proved indirectly, by the aid of in- 
ductions founded on other facts whicli we can more 
easily reach." If the figure of the earth and its rota- 
tion are proved by Induction, it seems very strange, 
and is to me quite incomprehensible, how the figure of 
the earth's orbit and its revolution (and of course, of 
the figure of Mars's orbit and his revolution in like 
manner,) are not also proved by Induction. No, says 
Mr. Mill, Kepler, in putting together a number of 
places of the planet into one figure, only jjerformed an 
act of description. "This descriptive operation," he 



248 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

adds (i. 359), "Mr. Whewell, by aD aptly chosen ex- 
pression, has termed Colligation of Facts." He goes 
on to commend my observations concerning this pro- 
cess, but says that, according to the old and received 
meaning of the term, it is not Induction at all. 

16. Now I have already shown that Mr. Mill him- 
self, a few pages earlier, had applied the term Induction 
to cases undistinguishable from this in any essential 
circumstance. And even in this case, he allows that 
Kepler did really perform an act of Induction (i. 358), 
"namely, in concluding that, because the observed 
places of Mars were correctly represented by points in 
an imaginary ellipse, therefore Mars would continue to 
revolve in that same ellipse; and even in concluding 
that the position of the planet during the time which 
had intervened between the two observations must 
have coincided with the intermediate points of the 
curve." Of course, in Kepler's Induction, of which I 
speak, I include all this ; all this is included in speak- 
ing of the orhit of Mars : a continuous line, a periodical 
motion, are implied in the term orbit. I am unable to 
see what would remain of Kepler's discovery, if we 
take from it these conditions. It would not only not 
be an induction, but it would not be a description, for 
it would not recognize that Mars moved in an orbit. 
Are particular positions to be conceived as points in a 
curve, without thinking of the intermediate positions 
as belonging to the same curve 1 If so, there is no law 
at all, and the facts are not bound together by any 
intelligible tie. 

In another place (ii. 209) Mr. Mill returns to his 
distinction of Description and Induction; but without 
throwing any additional light upon it, so far as I can 
see. 

17. The only meaning which I can discover in this 
attempted distinction of Description and Induction is, 
that when particular facts are bound together by their 
relation in space, Mr. Mill calls the discovery of the 
connexion Description, but when they are connected 
by other general relations, as time, cause and the like, 
Mr. Mill terms the discovery of the connexion Indue- 



\ 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 249 

tion. And this way of making a distinction, would 
fall in with the doctrine of other parts of Mr. Mill's 
book, in which he ascribes very peculiar attributes to 
space and its relations, in comparison with other Ideas, 
(as I should call them). But I cannot see any ground 
for this distinction, of connexion according to space 
and other connexions of facts. 

To stand upon such a distinction, appears to me to 
be the way to miss the general laws of the formation 
of science. For example : The ancients discovered 
that the planets revolved in recurring periods, and 
thus connected the observations of their motions ac- 
cording to the Idea of Time. Kepler discovered that 
they revolved in ellipses, and thus connected the ob- 
servations according to the Idea of Space. ISTewton- 
discovered that they revolved in virtue of the Sun's 
attraction, and thus connected the motions according 
to the Idea of Force. The first and third of these dis- 
coveries are recognized on all hands as processes of 
Induction. Why is the second to be called by a dif- 
ferent name"? or what but confusion and perplexity 
can arise from refusing to class it with the other two 1 
It is, you say, Description. But such Description is a 
kind of Induction, and must be spoken of as Induction, 
if we are to speak of Induction as the process by which 
Science is formed: for the three steps are all, the 
second in the same sense as the first and third, in 
co-ordination with them, steps in the formation of 
astronomical science. 

18. But, says Mr. Mill (i. 363), "it is a fact surely 
that the planet does describe an ellipse, and a fact 
which we could see if we had adequate visual organs 
and a suitable position." To this I should reply: "Let 
it be so; and it is a fact, surely, that the planet does 
move periodically : it is a fact, surely, that the planet 
is attracted by the sun. Still, therefore, the asserted 
distinction fails to find a ground." Perhaps Mr. Mill 
would remind us that the elliptical form of the orbit is 
a fact which we could see if we had adequate visual 
organs and a suitable position: but that force is a 
thing which we cannot see. But this distinction also 



2 50 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

will not bear handling. Can we not see a tree blown 
down by a storm, or a rock blown up by gunpowder? 
Do we not here see force : — see it, that is, by its effects, 
the only way in which we need to see it in the case 
of a planet, for the purposes of our argument? Are 
not such operations of force. Facts which may be 
the objects of sense? and is not the operation of the 
sun's Force a Fact of the same kind, just as much as 
the elliptical form of orbit which results from the 
action? If the latter be "surely a Fact," the former 
is a Fact no less surely, 

19. In truth, as I have repeatedly had occasion to 
remark, all attempts to frame an argument by the 
exclusive or emphatic appropriation of the term Fact 
to particular cases, are necessarily illusory and incon- 
clusive. There is no definite and stable distinction 
between Facts and Theories ; Facts and Laws ; Facts 
and Inductions. Inductions, Laws, Theories, which 
are true, are Facts. Facts involve Inductions. It is 
a fact that the moon is attracted by the earth, just as 
much as it is a Fact that an apple falls from a tree. 
That the former fact is collected by a more distinct 
and conscious Induction, does not make it the less 
a Fact. That the orbit of Mars is a Fact — a true 
Description of the path — does not make it the less 
a case of Induction. 

20. There is another argument which Mr. Mill 
employs in order to show that there is a difference 
between mere colligation which is description, and in- 
duction in the more proper sense of the term. He 
notices with commendation a remark which I had 
made (i. 364), that at different stages of the progress 
of science the facts had been successfully connected by 
means of very different conceptions, while yet the later 
conceptions have not contradicted, but included, so far 
as they were true, the earlier: thus the ancient Greek 
representation of the motions of the planets by means 
of epicycles and eccentrics, was to a certain degree of 
accuracy true, and is not negatived, though superseded, 
by the modern representation of the planets as describ- 
ing ellipses round the sun. And he then reasons that 



MR. mill's logic. 25I 

this, whicli is thus time of Descriptions, cannot be true 
of Inductions. He says (i. 367), "Different descrip- 
tions therefore may be all true : but surely not different 
explanations." He then notices the Tarious explana- 
tions of the motions of the planets — the ancient doc- 
trine that they are moved by an inherent virtue ; the 
Cartesian doctrine that they are moved by impulse and 
by vortices ; the Newtonian doctrine that they are 
governed by a central force; and he adds, "Can it be 
said of these, as was said of the different descriptions, 
that they are all true as far as they go? Is it not 
true that one only can be true in any degree, and that 
the other two must be altogether false?" 

21. And to this questioning, the history of science 
compels me to reply very distinctly and positively, in 
the way which Mr. MiE^ appears to think extrava- 
gant and absurd. I am obliged to say. Undoubtedly, 
all these explanations may be true and consistent with 
each other, and would be so if each had been followed 
out so as to show in what manner it could be made 
consistent with the facts. And this was, in reality, 
in a great measure done^ The doctrine that the 
heavenly bodies were moved by vortices was succes- 
sively modified, so that it came to coincide in its 
results with the doctrine of an inverse-quadratic centri- 
petal force, as I have remarked in the History^. When 
this point was reached, the vortex was merely a 
machinery, well or ill devised, for producing such a 
centripetal force, and therefore did not contradict the 
doctrine of a centripetal force. Newton himself does 
not appear to have been avei-se to explaining gi^avity 
by impulse. So little is it true that if the one theory be 
true the other must be false. The attempt to explain 
gravity by the impulse of streams of particles flowing 
through the universe in all directions, w^hich I have men- 
tioned in the Philosophy^, is so far from being incon- 



* On this subject see an Essay On the Transformation of Hypotheses, 
given in the Appendix. 

5 B. viL c. iii, sect. 3. « B. iii c. lk. art. 7. 



2 52 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

sistent with the Newtonian theory, that it is founded 
entirely upon it. And even with regard to the doctrine, 
that the heavenly bodies move by an inherent virtue; 
if this doctrine had been maintained in any such way 
that it was brought to agree with the facts, the in- 
herent virtue must have had its laws determined; and 
then, it would have been found that the virtue had a 
reference to the central body; and so, the "inherent 
virtue" must have coincided in its effect with the 
Newtonian force; and then, the two explanations 
would agree, except so far as the word " inherent" 
was concerned. And if such a part of an earlier theory 
as this word inherent indicates, is. found to be unten- 
able, it is of course rejected in the transition to later 
and more exact theories, in Inductions of this kind, 
as well as in what Mr. Mill calls Descriptions. There 
is therefore still no validity discoverable in the dis- 
tinction which Mr. Mill attempts to draw between 
"descriptions" like Kepler's law of elliptical orbits, 
and other examples of induction. 

2 2. When Mr. Mill goes on to compare what he 
calls different predictions — the first, the true explana- 
tion of eclipses by the shadows which the planets and 
satellites cast upon one another, and the other, the 
belief that they will occur whenever some great cala- 
mity is impending over mankind, I must reply, as I 
have stated already, (Art. 17), that to class such super- 
stitions as the last with cases of Induction, appears to 
me to confound all use of words, and to prevent, as 
far as it goes, all profitable exercise of thought. What 
possible advantage can result from comparing (as if 
they were alike) the relation of two descriptions of a 
phenomenon, each to a certain extent true, and there- 
fore both consistent, with the relation of a scientific 
truth to a false and baseless superstition ? 

23. But I may make another remark on this 
example, so strangely introduced. If, under the in- 
fluence of fear and superstition, men may make such 
mistakes with regard to laws of nature, as to imagine 
that eclipses portend calamities, are they quite secure 
from mistakes in description ? Do not the very per- 



MR. mill's logic. 253 

sons who tell us how ecKpses predict disasters, also 
describe to us fiery swords seen in the air, and armies 
fighting in the sky 1 So that even in this extreme case, 
at the very limit of the rational exercise of human 
powers, there is nothing to distinguish Description 
from Induction. 

I shall now leave the reader to judge whether this 
feature in the history of science, — that several views 
which appear at first quite difierent are yet all true, — 
which Mr. Mill calls a curious and interesting remark 
of mine, and which he allows to be "strikingly true" 
of the Inductions which he calls Descriptions, (i. 364) 
is, as he says, "unequivocally false" of other Induc- 
tions. And I shall confide in having general assent 
with me, when I continue to speak of Kepler's Induc- 
tion of the elliptical orbits. 

I now proceed to another remark. 

III. In Discovery a new Conception is introduced. — 
24. There is a difference between Mr. Mill and me 
in our view of the essential elements of this Induction 
of Kepler, which affects all other cases of Induction, 
and which is, I think, the most extensive and im- 
portant of the differences between us. I must there- 
fore venture to dwell upon it a little in detail. 

I conceive that Kepler, in discovering the law of 
Mars's motion, and in asserting that the planet moved 
in an ellipse, did this; — he bound together particular 
observations of separate places of Mars by the notion, 
or, as I have called it, the conception, of an ellipse, 
which was supplied by his own mind. Other persons, 
and he too, before he made this discovery, had present 
to their minds the facts of such separate successive posi- 
tions of the planet; but could not bind them together 
rightly, because they did not apply to them this con- 
ception of an ellipse. To supply this conception, re- 
quired a special preparation, and a special activity in 
the mind of the discoverer. He, and others before 
him, tried other ways of connecting the special facts, 
none of which fully succeeded. To discover such a 
connexion, the mind must be conversant with certain 
relations of space, and with certain kinds of figures. 






2 54 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

To discover tlie right figure was a matter requiring 
research, invention, resource. To hit upon the right 
conception is a difficult step; and when this step is 
once made, the facts assume a different aspect from 
what they had before : that done, they are seen in a 
new point of view; and the catching this point of 
view, is a special mental operation, requiring special 
endowments and habits of thought. Before this, the 
facts are seen as detached, separate, lawless; after- 
wards, they are seen as connected, simple, regular; as 
parts of one general fact, and thereby possessing innu- 
merable new relations before unseen. Kepler, then, 
I say, bound together the facts by superinducing upon 
them the conception of an ellipse; and this was an 
essential element in his Induction. 

25. And there is the same essential element in 
all Inductive discoveries. In all cases, facts, before 
detached and lawless, are bound together by a new 
thought. They are reduced to law, by being seen in 
a new point of view. To catch this new point of 
view, is an act of the mind, springing from its pre- 
vious preparation and habits. The facts, in other 
discoveries, are brought together according to other 
relations, or, as I have called them. Ideas; — the 
Ideas of Time, of Force, of Number, of Kesemblance, 
of Elementary Composition, of Polarity, and the like. 
But in all cases, the mind performs the operation by 
an apprehension of some such relations ; by singling 
out the one true relation ; by combining the apprehen- 
sion of the true relation with the facts ; by applying to 
th^m the Conception of such a relation. 

26. In previous writings, 1 have not only stated 
this view generally, but I have followed it into de- 
tail, exemplifying it in the greater part of the History 
of the principal Inductive Sciences in succession. I 
have pointed out what are the Conceptions which have 
been introduced in every prominent discovery in those 
sciences ; and have noted to which of the above Ideas, 
or of the like Ideas, each belongs. The performance 
of this task is the office of the greater part of my 
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. For that work 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 255 

is, in reality, no less liistorical than the History which 
preceded it. The History of the Inductive Sciences is 
the history of the discoveries, mainly so far as con- 
cerns the Facts which were brought together to form 
sciences. The Philosophy is, in the first ten Books, 
the history of the Ideas and Conceptions, by means of 
which the facts were connected, so as to give rise to 
scientific truths. It would be easy for me to give a 
long list of the Ideas and Conceptions thus brought 
into view, but I may refer any reader who wishes to 
see such a list, to the Tables of Contents of the Histo^'y, 
and of the first ten Books of the Fhilosophy. 

27. That these Ideas and Conceptions are really 
distinct elements of the scientific truths thus obtained, 
I conceive to be proved beyond doubt, not only by 
considering that the discoveries never were made, nor 
could be made, till the right Conception was obtained, 
and by seeing how difficult it often was to obtain this 
element; but also, by seeing that the Idea and the 
Conception itself, as distinct from the Facts, was, in 
almost every science, the subject of long and obstinate 
controversies; — controversies which turned upon the 
possible relations of Ideas, much more than upon the 
actual relations of Facts. The fii'st ten Books of the 
Philosophy to which I have referred, contain the his- 
tory of a great number of these controversies. These 
controversies make up a large portion of the history 
of each science; a portion quite as important as the 
study of the facts; and a portion, at every stage of 
the science, quite as essential to the progress of truth. 
Men, in seeking and obtaining scientific knowledge, 
have always shown that they found the formation of 
right conceptions in their own minds to be an essen- 
tial part of the process. 

28. Moreover, the presence of a Conception of the 
mind as a special element of the inductive process, 
and as the tie by which the particular facts are bound 
together, is further indicated, by there being some 
special new term or 2:)hrase introduced in eveiy in- 
duction; or at least some term or phrase thence- 
forth steadily applied to the facts, which had not been 



256 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

applied to theni before ; as when Kepler asserted that 
Mars moved round the sun in an elliptical orbit, or 
when Newton asserted that the planets gravitate to- 
wards the sun; these new terms, elliptical orbit, and 
gravitate, mark the new conceptions on which the 
inductions depend. I have in the Philosophy'' further 
illustrated this application of "technical terms," that 
is, fixed and settled terms, in every inductive disco- 
very; and have spoken of their use in enabling men 
to proceed from each such discovery to other disco- 
veries more general. But I notice these terms here, 
for the purpose of showing the existence of a concep- 
tion in the discoverer's mind, corresponding to the 
term thus introduced; which conception, the term is 
intended to convey to the minds of those to whom the 
discovery is communicated. 

29. But this element of discovery, — right concep- 
tions supplied by the mind in order to bind the facts 
together, — Mr. Mill denies to be an element at all. He 
says, of Kepler's discovery of the elliptical orbit (i. 
363), "It superadded nothing to the particular facts 
which it served to bind together;" yet he adds, "ex- 
cept indeed the knowledge that a resemblance existed 
between the planetary orbit and other ellipses ;" that 
is, except the knowledge that it was an ellipse; — 
precisely the circumstance in which the discovery con- 
sisted. Kepler, he says, "asserted as a fact that the 
planet moved in an ellipse. But this fact, which 
Kepler did not add to, but found in the motion of 
the planet... was the very fact, the separate parts of 
which had been separately observed; it was the sum 
of the different observations." 

30. That the fact of the elliptical motion was not 
merely the sum of the different observations, is plain 
from this, that other persons, and Kepler himself be- 
fore his discovery, did not find it by adding together 
the observations. The fact of the elliptical orbit was 
not the sum of the observations merely ; it was the 



7 B. i. c. iiL 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 257 

sum of the observations, seen under a new point of 
vieio, which point of view Kepler's mind snjDplied. 
Kepler found it in the facts, because it was there, no 
doubt, for one reason; but also, for another, because 
he had, in his mind, those relations of thought which 
enabled him to find it. We may illustrate this by a 
familiar analogy. We too find the law in Kepler's 
book; but if we did not understand Latin, we should 
not find it there. We must learn Latin in order to 
find the law in the book. La like manner, a disco- 
verer must know the language of science, as well as 
look at the book of nature, in order to find scientific 
truth. All the discussions and controversies respect- 
ing Ideas and Conceptions of which I have spoken, 
may be looked upon as discussions and controversies 
respecting the grammar of the language in which na- 
ture speaks to the scientific mind. Man is the Inter- 
preter of Nature; not the Spectator merely, but the 
Interpreter. The study of the language, as well as 
the mere sight of the characters, is requisite in. order 
that we may read the inscriptions which are written, 
on the face of the world. And this study of the lan- 
guage of nature, that is, of the necessary coherencies 
and derivations of the relations of phenomena, is to be 
pursued by examining Ideas, as well as mere pheno- 
mena; — by tracing the formation of Conceptions, as 
well as the accumulation of Facts. And tMs is what 
I have tried to do in the books already referred to. 

31. Mr. ]VIill has not noticed, in any considerable 
degree, what I have said of the formation of the Con- 
ceptions which enter into tlie various sciences; but he 
has, in general terms, denied that the Conception is 
anything difierent from the facts themselves. " If," 
he says (i. 301), "the facts are rightly classed under 
the conceptions, it is because there is in the facts 
themselves, something of which the conception is a 
copy." But it is a copy which cannot be made by a 
person without peculiar endowments; just as a per- 
son cannot copy an ill-^vritten inscription, so as to 
make it convey sense, unless he understand the lan- 
guage. "Conceptions," Mr. Mill says (ii. 217), "do not 



258 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

develope themselves from within, but are impressed 
from without." But what comes from without is not 
enough : they must have both origins, or they cannot 
make knowledge. • " The conception," he says again 
(ii. 221), "is not furnished hy the mind till it has 
been furnished to the mind." But it is furnished to 
the mind by its own activity, operating according to 
its own laws. No doubt, the conception may be 
formed, and in cases of discovery, must be formed, by 
the suggestion and excitement which the facts them- 
selves produce; and must be so moulded as to agree 
with the facts. But this does not make it superfluous 
to examine, out of what materials such conceptions are 
formed, and hoio they are capable of being moulded so 
as to express laws of nature ; especially, when we see 
how large a share this part of discovery — the examina- 
tion how our ideas can be modified so as to agree with 
nature, — holds, in the history of science. 

32. I have already (Art. 28) given, as evidence 
that the conception enters as an element in every in- 
duction, the constant introduction in such cases, of a 
new fixed term or phrase. Mr. Mill (ii. 282) notices 
this introduction of a new phrase in such cases as 
important, though he does not ajDpear willing to allow 
that it is necessary. Yet the necessity of the concep- 
tion at least, appears to result from the considerations 
which he puts forward. "What darkness," he says, 
*' would have been spread over geometrical demonstra- 
tion, if wherever the word circle is used, the definition 
of a circle was inserted instead of it." " If we want 
to make a particular combination of ideas permanent 
in the mind, there is nothing which clenches it like a 
name specially devoted to express it." In my view, 
the new conception is the nail which connects the 
previous notions, and the name, as Mr. Mill says, 
clenches the junction. 

33. I have above (Art. 30) referred to the diffi- 
culty of getting hold of the right conception, as a 
proof that induction is not a mere juxtaposition of 
facts. Mr. Mill does not dispute that it is often diffi- 
cult to liit upon the right conception. He says (i. 360), 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 259 

"that a conception of the mind is introduced, is in- 
deed most certain, and Mr.Whewell has rightly stated 
elsewhere, that to hit upon the right conception is 
often a far more difficult, and more meritorious achieve- 
ment, than to prove its applicability when obtained. 
But," he adds, "a conception implies and corresponds 
to something conceived; and although the conception 
itself is not in the facts, bnt in our mind, it must be a 
conception of something which really is in the facts." 
But to this I reply, that its being really in the facts, 
does not help us at all towards knowledge, if we can- 
not see it there. As the poet says, 

It is the mind that sees : the outward eyes 
Present the object, but the mind descries. 

And this is true of the sight which produces know- 
ledge, as well as of the sight which produces pleasure 
and pain, which is referred to in the Tale. 

34. Mr. Mill puts his view, as opposed to mine, in 
various ways, but, as will easily be understood, the 
answers which I have to offer are in all cases nearly 
to the same effect. Thus, he says (ii. 216), ''the tardy 
development of several of the physical sciences, for 
example, of Optics, Electricity, Magnetism, and the 
higher generalizations of Chemistry, Mr. Whewell 
ascribes to the fact that mankind had not yet pos- 
sessed themselves of the idea of Polarity, that is, of 
opposite properties in opposite directions. But what 
was there to suggest such an idea, until by a separate 
examination of several of these different branches of 
knowledge it was shown that the facts of each of them 
did present, in some instances at least, the curious 
phenomena of opposite properties in opposite direc- 
tions'?" But on this I observe, that these facts did 
not, nor do yet, present this conception to ordinary 
minds. The opposition of properties, and even the 
opposition of directions, which are thus apprehended 
by profound cultivators of science, are of an abstruse 
and recondite kind ; and to conceive any one kind of 
polarity in its proper generality, is a process which 
few persons hitherto appear to have mastered; still 
less, have men in general come to conceive of them all 

S 2 



2 6o PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

as modifications of a general notion of Polarity. The 
description which I have given of Polarity in general, 
" opposite properties in opposite directions," is of itself 
a very imperfect account of the manner in which cor- 
responding antitheses are involved in the portions of 
science into which Polar relations enter. In excuse 
of its imperfection, I may say, that I believe it is the 
first attempt to define Polarity in general; but yet, 
the conception of Polarity has certainly been strongly 
and efiectively present in the minds of many of the 
sagacious men who have discovered and unravelled 
polar phenomena. They attempted to convey this 
conception, each in his own subject, sometimes by 
various and peculiar expressions, sometimes by imagi- 
nary mechanism by which the antithetical results were 
produced; their mode of expressing themselves being 
often defective or imperfect, often containing what 
was superfluous ; and their meaning was commonly 
very imperfectly apprehended by most of their hearers 
and readers. But still, the conception was there, gra- 
dually working itself into clearness and distinctness, 
and in the mean time, directing their experiments, and 
forming an essential element of their discoveries. So 
far would it be from a sufficient statement of the case 
to say, that they conceived polarity because they saw 
it; — that they saw it as soon as it came into view; — 
and that they described it as they saw it. 

35. The way in which such conceptions acquire 
clearness and distinctness is often by means of Discus- 
sions of Definitions. To define well a thought which 
already enters into trains of discovery, is often a diffi- 
cult matter. The business of such definition is a part 
of the business of discovery. These, and other re- 
marks connected with these, which I had made in the 
Philosophy, Mr. Mill has quoted and adopted (ii. 242). 
They appear to me to point very distinctly to the doc- 
trine to which he refuses his assent, — that there is a 
special process in the mind, in addition to the mere 
observation of facts, which is necessary at every step 
in the progress of knowledge. The Conception must 
be formed before it can be defined. The Definition 



MR. mill's logic. 26 1 

gives the last stamp of distinctness to tLe Conception; 
and enables iis to express, in a compact and lucid 
form, the new scientific propositions into which the 
new Conception enters. 

36. Since Mr. Mill assents to so much of what has 
been said in the Philosophy, with regard to the process 
of scientific discovery, how, it may be asked, would he 
express these doctrines so as to exclude that which he 
thinks erroneous? If he objects to our saying that 
when we obtain a new inductive truth, we. connect 
phenomena by applying to them a new Conception 
which fits them, in what terms would he describe the 
process? If he will not agree to say, that in order to 
discover the law of the facts, we must find an a2:>pro- 
priate Conception, what language would he use instead 
of this? This is a natural question; and the answer 
cannot fail to throw light on the relation in which his 
views and mine stand to each other. 

Mr. Mill would say, I believe, that when we obtain 
a new inductive law of facts, we find something in 
which the facts resemble each other; and that the busi- 
ness of making such discoveries is the business of dis- 
covering such resemblances. Thus, he says (of me,) 
(ii. 211), "his Colligation of Facts by means of appro- 
priate Conceptions, is but the ordinary process of find- 
ing by a comparison of phenomena, in what consists 
their agreement or resemblance." And the Methods 
of experimental Inquiry which he gives (i. 450, (fee), 
proceed upon the supposition that the business of dis- 
covery may be thus more joroperly described. 

37. There is no doubt that when we discover a law 
of nature by induction, we find some point in which 
all the particular facts agree. All the orbits of the 
planets agree in being ellipses, as Kepler discovered; 
all falling bodies agree in being acted on by a uniform 
force, as Galileo discovered; all refracted rays agree in 
having the sines of incidence and refraction in a con- 
stant ratio, as Snell discovered; all the bodies in the 
universe agree in attracting each other, as Newton 
discovered; all chemical compounds agree in being 
constituted of elements in definite proportions, as 



262 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

Dalton discovered. But it appears to me a most scanty, 
vague, and incomplete account of these steps in sci- 
ence, to say that the authors of them discovered some- 
thing in which the facts in each case agreed. The 
point in which the cases agree, is of the most diverse 
kind in the different cases — in some, a relation of 
space, in others, the action of a force, in others, the 
mode of composition of a substance; — and the point 
of agi-eement, visible to the discoverer alone, does not 
come even into his sight, till after the facts have been 
connected by thoughts of his own, and regarded in 
points of view in which he, by his mental acts, places 
them. It would seem to me not much more inappro- 
priate to say, that an officer, who discij^lines his men 
till they move together at the word of command, does 
so by finding something in which they agree. If the 
power of consentaneous motion did not exist in the in- 
dividuals, he could not create it : but that power being 
there, he finds it and uses it. Of course I am aware 
that the parallel of the two cases is not exact ; but in 
the one case, as in the other, that in which the par- 
ticular things are found to agree, is something formed 
in the mind of him who brings the agreement into 
view. 

lY. Mr. MilVs Four Methods of Inquiry. — 38. Mr. 
Mill has not only thus described the business of scien- 
tific discovery; he has also given rules for it, founded 
on this description. It may be expected that we 
should bestow some attention upon the methods of 
inquiry which he thus proposes. I presume that they 
are regarded by his admirers as among the most valu- 
able j^arts of his book; as certainly they cannot fail to 
be, if they describe methods of scientific inquiry in 
such a manner as to be of use to the inquirer. 

Mr. Mill enjoins four methods of experimental in- 
quiry, which he calls the Metlwd of Agreement^ the 
Method of Difference^ the Method of Residues, and the 
Method of Concomitant Variations^. They are all 



B. iii. c. viii. 



MR. mill's logic. 263 

described by formulse of this kind: — Let there be, 
in the observed facts, combinations of antecedents, 
ABC, £G, ADE, &c. and combinations of corre- 
sponding consequents, ahc, he, ade, &c. ; and let the 
object of inquiry be, the consequence of some cause A, 
or the cause of some consequence a. The Method of 
Agreement teaches us, that when we find by experi- 
ment such facts as abc the consequent of ABC, and 
ade the consequent of ADE, then a is the consequent 
of A. The Method of Difierence teaches us that 
when we find such facts as ahc the consequent of ABC, 
and he the consequent of BG, then a is the consequent 
of ^. The Method of Residues teaches us, that if ahc 
be the consequent of ABC, and if we have already as- 
certained that the efiect of A is a, and the efiect of B 
is h, then we may infer that the effect of G is c. The 
Method of Concomitant Variations teaches us, that if 
a phenomenon a varies according as another phenome- 
non A varies, there is some connexion of causation 
direct or indirect, between A and a. 

39. Upon these methods, the obvious thing to re- 
mark is, that they take for granted the very thing 
which is most difficult to discover, the reduction of the 
phenomena to formulse such as are here presented to 
us. When we have any set of complex facts offered to 
us; for instance, those which were offered in the cases 
of discovery which I have mentioned, — the facts of the 
planetary paths, of falling bodies, of refracted rays, of 
cosmical motions, of chemical analysis; and when, in 
any of these cases, we would discover the law of na- 
ture which governs them, or, if any one chooses so to 
term it, the feature in which all the cases agree, where 
are we to look for our A, B, G and a, h, cl Nature 
does not present to us the cases in this form ; and how 
are we to reduce them to this form? You say, when 
we find the combination of ABG with abc and ABD 
with abd, then we may draw our inference. Granted : 
but when and where are we to find such combinations 1 
Even now that the discoveries are made, who will 
point out to us what are the A, B, G and a, b, c ele- 
ments of the cases which have just been enumerated? 



264 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 



Who will tell us wliich of the methods of inquiry 
those historically real and successful inquiries exem- 
plify'? Who will carry these formulae through the 
history of the sciences, as they have really grown up ; 
and show us that these four methods have been opera- 
tive in their formation; or that any light is thrown 
upon the steps of their progress by reference to these 
formulae 1 

40. Mr. Mill's four methods have a great resem- 
blance to Bacon's "Prerogatives of Instances;" for 
example, the Method of Agreement to the Instantice 
Ostensivce; the Method of Differences to the Instantice 
Ahsentim in Proximo, and the Instantice Crucis; the 
Method of Concomitant Yariations to the Instantice 
Migrantes. And with regard to the value of such 
methods, I believe all study of science will convince 
us more and more of the wisdom of the remarks which 
Sir John Herschel has made upon them^. 

"It has always appeared to us, we must confess, 
that the help which the classification of instances 
under their different titles of prerogative, affords to 
inductions, however just such classification may be in 
itself, is yet more apparent than real. The force of 
the instance must be felt in the mind before it can be 
referred to its place in the system; and before it can 
be either referred or appreciated it must be known; 
and when it is appreciated, we are ready enough to 
weave our web of induction, without greatly troubling 
ourselves whence it derives the weight we acknow- 
ledge it to have in our decisions.... No doubt such in- 
stances as these are highly instructive; but the diffi- 
culty in physics is to fiiid such, not to perceive their 
force when found." 

V. His Examples. — 41. If Mr. Mill's four methods 
had been applied by him in his book to a large body 
of conspicuous and undoubted examples of discovery, 
well selected and well analysed, extending along the 
whole history of science, we should have been better 



9 Discourse, Art. 192. 



MR. mill's logic. 265 

able to estimate the value of these methods. Mr. Mill 
has certainly offered a number of examples of his 
methods; but I hope I may say, without offence, that 
they appear to me to be wanting in the conditions 
which I have mentioned. As I have to justify myself 
for rejecting Mr. Mill's criticism of doctrines which I 
have put forward, and examples which I have adduced, 
I may, I trust, be allowed to offer some critical re- 
marks in return, bearing upon the examples which he 
has given, in order to illustrate his doctrines and 
precepts. 

42. The fii'st remark which I have to make is, 
that a large proportion of his examples (i. 480, &c.) 
is taken from one favourite author; who, however 
great his merit may be, is too recent a writer to have 
had his discoveries confirmed by the corresponding 
investigations and searching criticisms of other la- 
bourers in the same field, and placed in their proper 
and permanent relation to estabKshed truths ; these 
alleged discoveries being, at the same time, principally 
such as deal with the most complex and slippery por- 
tions of science, the laws of vital action. Thus Mr. 
Mill has adduced, as examples of discoveries, Prof 
Liebig's doctrine — that death is produced by certain 
metallic poisons through their forming indecomposable 
compounds; that the effect of respiration upon the 
blood consists in the conversion of peroxide of iron 
into protoxide — that the antiseptic power of salt arises 
from its attraction for moisture — that chemical action 
is contagious; and others. Now supposing that we 
have no doubt of the truth of these discoveries, we 
must still observe that they cannot wisely be cited, 
in order to exemplify the nature of the progress 
of knowledge, till they have been verified by other 
chemists, and worked into their places in the general 
scheme of chemistry; especially, since it is tolerably 
certain that in the process of verification, they will 
be modified and more precisely defined. ISTor can I 
think it judicious to take so large a proportion of our 
examples from a region of science in which, of all 
parts of our material knowledge, the conceptions both of 



266 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

ordinary persons, and even of men of science themselves, 
are most loose and obscure, and the genuine principles 
most contested; whicli is the case in physiology. It 
would be easy, I think, to point out the vague and 
indeterminate character of many of the expressions in 
which the above examples are propounded, as well as 
their doubtful position in the scale of chemical gene- 
ralization; but I have said enough to show why I 
cannot give much weight to these, as cardinal exam- 
ples of the method of discovery; and therefore I shall 
not examine in detail how far they support Mr. Mill's 
methods of inquiry. 

43. Mr. Liebig supplies the first and the majority 
of Mr. Mill's examples in chapter ix. of his Book on 
Induction. The second is an example for which Mr. 
Mill states himself to be indebted to Mr. Alexander 
Bain; the law established being this, that (i. 487) 
electricity cannot exist in one body without the simul- 
taneous excitement of the opposite electricity in some 
neighbouring body, which Mr. Mill also confirms by 
reference to Mr. Faraday's experiments on voltaic 
wires. 

I confess I am quite at a loss to understand what 
there is in the doctrine here ascribed to Mr. Bain 
which was not known to the electricians who, from 
the time of Franklm, exiDlained the phenomena of the 
Leyden vial. I may observe also that the mention of 
an "electrified atmosphere" implies a hypothesis long 
obsolete. The essential point in all those explanations 
was, that each electricity produced by induction the 
opposite electricity in neighbouring bodies, as I have 
tried to make apparent in the History^^. Faraday has, 
more recently, illustrated this universal coexistence of 
opposite electricities with his usual felicity. 

But the conjunction of this fact with voltaic pheno- 
mena, implies a non-recognition of some of the simplest 
doctrines of the subject. " Since," it is said (i. 488), 
^^ common or machine electricity, and voltaic electricity 



10 B. si. c. xi. 



MR. mill's logic. 267 

may be considered for the present purpose to be iden- 
tical, Faraday wished to know, &c." I think Mr. 
Faraday would be much astonished to learn that he 
considered electricity in equilibrium, and electricity in 
the form of a voltaic current, to be, for any purpose, 
identical. Nor do I conceive that he would assent to 
the expression in the next page, that "from the nature 
of a voltaic charge, the two opposite currents necessary 
to the existence of each other are both accommodated 
in one wire." Mr. Faraday has, as it appears to me, 
studiously avoided assenting to this hypothesis. 

44. The next example is the one already so co- 
piously dwelt upon by Sir John Hei^chel, Dr. Wells's 
researches on the production of Dew. I have already 
said^^ that "this investigation, although it has some- 
times been praised as an original discovery, was in fact 
only resolving the phenomenon into principles akeady 
discovered;" namely, the doctrine of a constituent tem- 
perature of vapour, the different conducting power of 
different bodies, and the like. And this agrees in 
substance with what Mr. Mill says (i. 497); that the 
discovery, when made, was corroborated by deduction 
from the known laws of aqueous vapour, of conduc- 
tion, and the like. Dr. Wells's researches on Dew 
tended much in this country to draw attention to the 
general principles of Atmologvj and we may see, in 
this and in other examples whicli JNIr. ]Mill adduces, 
that the explanation of special phenomena by means 
of general principles, already established, has, for com- 
mon minds, a greater charm, and is more complacently 
dwelt on, than the discovery of the general principles 
themselves. 

45. The next example, (i. 502) is given in order to 
illustrate the Method of Residues, and is the discovery 
by M. Arago that a disk of copper affects the vibra- 
tions of the magnetic needle. But this aj)parently de- 
tached fact affords little instruction compared with the 
singularly sagacious researches by which lSli\ Faraday 



11 PhU. b. xiiL c. ix. art. 7. 



2 0b PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

clisco-^ered the cause of this effect to reside in the 
voltaic currents which the motion of the magnetic 
needle developed in the copper. I have spoken of this 
discovery in the History^^. Mr. Mill however is 
quoting Sir John Herschel in thus illustrating the 
Method of E-esidues. He rightly gives the Pertur- 
bations of the Planets and Satellites as better exam- 
ples of the method ^^ 

46. In the next chapter (c. x.) Mr, Mill speaks of 
Plurality of causes and of the Intermixture of effects, 
and gives examples of such cases. He here teaches 
(i. 517) that chemical synthesis and analysis, (as when 
oxygen and hydrogen compose water, and when water 
is resolved into oxygen and hydrogen,) is properly 
transformation ; but that because we find that the 
weight of the compound is equal to the sum of the 
weights of the elements, we take up the notion of 
chemical composition. I have endeavoured to show^* 
that the maxim, that the sum of the weights of the 
elements is equal to the weight of the compound, was, 
historically, not proved from experiment, but assumed 
in the reasonings upon experiments. 

47. I have now made my remarks upon nearly all 
the examples which Mr. Mill gives of scientific in- 
quiry, so far as they consist of knowledge which has 
really been obtained. I may mention, as points which 
appear to me to interfere with the value of Mr. IMill's 
references to examples, expressions which I cannot 
reconcile with just conceptions of scientific truth; as 
when he says (i. 523), "some other force which im- 
finges on the first force ;" and very frequently indeed, 
of the "tangential forced' as co-ordinate with the cen- 
tripetal force. 

When he speaks (ii. 20, Note) of " the doctrine now 
universally received that the earth is a great natural 
magnet with two poles," he does not recognize the 
recent theory of Gauss, so remarkably coincident with 



12 B. xiii. c. vitL 

13 Given also in the Thil. Ind. Sc. b. xiii, c. Aii. sect. 17. 

1* Ibid. b. vi. c. iv. 



MR. mill's logic. 269 

a vast body of facts ^^ Indeed in his statement, lie 
rejects no less the earlier views proposed by Halley, 
theorized by Euler, and confirmed by Hansteen, which 
show that we are compelled to assume at least four 
poles of terrestrial magnetism; which I had given an 
account of in the first edition of the History. 

There are several other cases which he puts, in 
which, the knowledge spoken of not having been yet 
acquired, he tells us how he would set about acquiring 
it; for instance, if the question were (i. 526) whether 
mercury be a cure for a given disease ; or whether the 
brain be a voltaic pile (ii. 21); or whether the moon 
be inhabited (ii. 100); or whether all crows are black 
(ii. 124); I confess that I have no expectation of any 
advantage to philosophy from discussions of this kind. 

48. I will add also, that I do not think any light 
can be thrown upon scientific methods, at present, by 
grouping along with such physical inquiries as I have 
been speaking of, speculations concerning the human 
mind, its qualities and operations. Thus he speaks 
(i. 508) of human characters, as exemplifying the 
efiect of plurality of causes; of (i. 518) the phenomena 
of our mental nature, which are analogous to chemical 
rather than to dynamical phenomena; of (i. 518) the 
reason why susceptible persons are imaginative; to 
which I may add, the passage where he says (i. 444), 
" let us take as an example of a phenomenon which 
we have no means of fabricating artificially, a human 
mind." These, and other like examples, occur in the 
part of his work in which he is speaking of scientific 
inquiry in general, not in the Book on the Logic of 
the Moral Sciences; and are, I think, examples more 
likely to lead us astray than to help our progress, in 
discovering the laws of Scientific Inquiry, in the or- 
dinary sense of the term. 

YI. Mr. Mill against Hypothesis. — 49. I will 
now pass from Mr. Mill's methods, illustrated by such 
examples as those which I have been considering, to 



15 See Hist. Inch Sc. b. xiL note d, in the second edition. 



270 



PHILOSOPHI OF DISCOVERT. 



^i 



the views respecting tlie conditions of Scientific In- 
duction to which I have been led, by such a survey as 
I could make, of the whole history of the principal 
Inductive Sciences j and especially, to those views to 
which Mr. Mill offers his objections'^. 

Mr. Mill thinks that I have been too favourable to 
the employment of hypotheses, as means of discovering 
scientific truth; and that I have countenanced a lax- 
ness of method, in allowing hypotheses to be esta- 
blished, merely in virtue of the accordance of their 
results with the phenomena. I believe I should be 
as cautious as Mr. Mill, in accepting mere hypotheti- 
cal explanations of phenomena, in any case in which 
we had the phenomena, and their relations, placed 
before both of us in an equally clear light. I have 
not accepted the Undulatory theory of Heat, though 
recommended by so many coincidences and analogies ^'^. 
But I see some grave reasons for not giving any great 
weight to Mr. Mill's admonitions; — reasons drawn 



16 There are some points in my doc- 
trines on the subject of the Classifl- 
catory Sciences to which Mr. Mill 
objects, (ii. 314, &c.), but there is 
nothing which I think it necessary 
to remark here, except one point. 
After speaking of Classification of 
organized beings in general, Mr. Mill 
notices (iL 321) as an additional sub- 
ject, the arrangement of natural 
groups into a Natural Series ; and he 
says, that "all who have attempted 
a theory of natural arrangement, in- 
cluding among the rest Mr. WheweU, 
have stopped short of this : all except 
M. Comte." On this I have to ob- 
serve, that I stopped short of, or 
rather passed by, the doctrine of a 
Series of organized beings, because I 
thought it bad and narrow philoso- 
phy: and that I sufficiently indi- 
cated that I did this. In the History 



(b. xvL c. vi.) I have spoken of the 
doctrine of Circular Progression pro- 
pounded by Mr. Macleay, and have 
said, "so far as this view negatives a 
mere linear progression in nature, 
which would place each genus in con- 
tact with the preceding and succeed- 
ing ones, and so far as it requires us 
to attend to the more varied and 
ramified resemblances, there can be 
no doubt that it is supported by the 
result of aU the attempts to form 
natural systems." And with regard 
to the difference between Cuvier and 
M. de BlainviUe, to which Mr. MiU 
refers (ii. 321), I certainly cannot 
think that M. Comte's suffrage can 
add any weight to the opinion of 
either of those great naturalists. 

17 Hist. Ind. Sc. b. x. note (va) in 
the second edition. 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 2/1 

from tlie language which he uses on the subject, and 
which appears to nie inconsistent with the conditions 
of the cases to which he applies it. Thus, when he 
says (ii. 22) that the condition of a hypothesis account- 
ing for all the known phenomena is " often fulfilled 
equally well by two conflicting hypotheses," I can 
only say that I know of no such case in the history of 
Science, where the phenomena are at all numerous 
and complicated; and that if such a case were to oc- 
cur, one of the hypotheses might always be resolved 
into the other. When he says, that "this evidence 
(the agreement of the results of the hypothesis with 
the phenomena) cannot be of the smallest value, be- 
cause we cannot have in the case of such an hypothe- 
sis the assurance that if the hypothesis be false it 
must lead to results at variance with the true facts," 
we must reply, with due submission, that we have, in 
the case spoken of j the most complete evidence of this ; 
for any change in the hypothesis would make it inca- 
pable of accounting for the facts. When he says that 
"if we give ourselves the license of inventing the 
causes as well as their laws, a person of fertile imagi- 
nation might devise a hundred modes of accounting 
for any given fact;" I reply, that the question is about 
accounting for a large and complex series of facts, of 
which the laws have been ascertained : and as a test 
of Mr. Mill's assertion, I would propose as a challenge 
to any person of fertile imagination to devise any one 
other hypothesis to account for the perturbations of 
the moon, or the coloured fringes of shadows, besides 
the hypothesis by which they have actually been ex- 
plained with such curious completeness. This challenge 
has been repeatedly oflered, but never in any degree 
accepted; and I entertain no apprehension that Mr. 
Mill's supposition will ever be verified by such a per- 
formance. 

50. I see additional reason for mistrusting the 
precision of Mr. Mill's views of that accordance of 
phenomena with the results of a hypothesis, in several 
others of the expressions which he uses (ii. 23). He 
speaks of a hypothesis being a " 'plausible explanation 



272 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 



SI: 



of all or most of the phenomena;" but the case which 
we have to consider is where it gives an exact repre- 
sentation of all the phenomena in which its results 
can be traced. He speaks of its being certain that 
the laws of the phenomena are "m some measure 
analogous'''' to those given by the hypothesis; the case 
to be dealt with being, that they are in every way 
identical. He speaks of this analogy being certain, 
from the fact that the hypothesis can be " for a moment 
tenable;''' as if any one had recommended a hypothesis 
which is tenable only while a small part of the facts 
are considered, when it is inconsistent with others 
which a fuller examination of the case discloses. I 
have nothing to say, and have said nothing, in favour 
of hypotheses which are not tenable. He says there 
are many such ^''harmonies running through the laws 
of phenomena in other respects radically distinct;" 
and he gives as an instance, the laws of light and 
heat. I have never alleged such harmonies as grounds 
of theory, unless they should amount to identities; 
and if they should do this, I have no doubt that the 
most sober thinkers will suppose the causes to be of 
the same kind in the two harmonizing instances. If 
chlorine, iodine and brome, or sulphur and phosphorus, 
have, as Mr. Mill says, analogous properties, I should 
call these substances analogous: but I can see no 
temptation to frame an hypothesis that they are iden- 
tical (which he seems to fear), so long as Chemistry 
proves them distinct. But any hypothesis of an analogy 
in the constitution of these elements (suppose, for in- 
stance, a resemblance in their atomic form or compo- 
sition) would seem to me to have a fair claim to trial ; 
and to be capable of being elevated from one degree 
of probability to another by the number, variety, and 
exactitude of the explanations of phenomena which it 
should furnish. 

VII. Against prediction of Facts. — 51. These ex- 
pressions of Mr. Mill have reference to a way in which 
hypotheses may be corroborated, in estimating the 
value of which, it appears that he and I differ. " It 
seems to be thought," he says (ii. 23), "that an hypo- 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 2/3 

thesis of the sort in question is entitled to a more 
favourable reception, if, besides accounting for the 
facts previously known, it has led to the anticipation 
and prediction of others which experience afterwards 
verified." And he adds, " Such predictions and their 
fulfilment are indeed well calculated to strike the 
ignorant vulgar;" but it is strange, he says, that any 
considerable stress should be laid upon such a coinci- 
dence by scientific thinkers. However strange it may 
seem to him, there is no doubt that the most scientific 
thinkers, far more than the ignorant vulgar, have 
allowed the coincidence of results predicted by theory 
with fact afterwards observed, to produce the strongest 
effects upon their conviction; and that all the best- 
established theories have obtained their permanent 
place in general acceptance in virtue of such coinci- 
dences, more than of any other evidence. It was not 
the ignorant vulgar alone, who were struck by the 
return of Hal ley's comet, as an evidence of the New- 
tonian theory. Nor was it the ignorant vulgar, who 
were struck with those facts which did so much strike 
men of science, as curiously felicitous proofs of the 
undulatory theory of light, — the production of dark- 
ness by two luminous rays interfering in a sj^ecial 
manner; the refraction of a single ray of light into 
a conical pencil ; and other comj^lex yet precise results, 
predicted by the theory and verified by experiment. 
It must, one would think, strike all persons in propor- 
tion to their thoughtfulness, that when Nature thus 
does our bidding, she acknowledges that we have 
learnt her true language. If we can predict new facts 
which we have not seen, as well as explain those which 
we have seen, it must be because our explanation is 
not a mere formula of observed facts, but a truth of 
a deeper kind. Mr. Mill says, "If the laws of the 
propagation of light agree with those of the vibrations 
of an elastic fluid in so many respects as is necessary 
to make the hypothesis a plausible explanation of all 
or most of the phenomena known at the time, it is 
nothing strange that they should accord with each 
other in one respect more.'* Nothing strange, if the 

T 



274 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

theory be true ; but quite unaccountable, if it be not. 
If I copy a long series of letters of wliicli the last 
half-dozen are concealed, and if I guess those aright, 
as is found to be the case when they are afterwards 
uncovered, this must be because I have made out the 
import of the inscription. To say, that because I have 
copied all that !• could see, it is nothing strange that 
I should guess those which I cannot see, would be 
absurd, without supposing such a ground for guessing. 
The notion that the discovery of the laws and causes 
of phenomena is a loose hap-hazard sort of guessing, 
which gives "plausible" explanations, accidental co- 
incidences, casual "harmonies," laws, "in some mea- 
sure analogous " to the true ones, suppositions "tenable" 
for a time, appears to me to be a misapprehension of 
the whole nature of science ; as it certainly is inappli- 
cable to the case to which it is principally applied by 
Mr. Mill. 

52. There is another kind of evidence of theories, 
very closely approaching to the verification of untried 
predictions, and to which, apparently, Mr. Mill does 
not attach much importance, since he has borrowed 
the term by which I have described it. Consilience^ 
but has applied it in a different manner (ii. 530, 
563, 590). I have spoken, in the Philosophy^^^ of 
the Consilience of Inductions, as one of the Tests of 
Hypotheses, and have exemplified it by many instances ; 
for example, the theory of universal gravitation, ob- 
tained by induction from the motions of the planets, 
was found to explain also that peculiar motion of 
the spheroidal earth which produces the Precession 
of the Equinoxes. This, I have said, was a striking 
and surprising coincidence which gave the theory a 
stamp of truth beyond the power of ingenuity to 
counterfeit. I may compare such occurrences to a 
case of interpreting an unknown character, in which 
two different inscriptions, deciphered by different 
persons, had given the same alphabet. We should. 



18 B, xi. c. V. art. ii. 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 275 

in such a case, believe with great confidence that the 
alphabet was the true one ; and I will add, that I 
believe the history of science offers no example in 
which a theory supported by such consiliences, had 
been afterwards proved to be false. 

53. Mr. Mill accepts (ii. 21) a rule of M. Comte's, 
that we may apply hypotheses, provided they are capa- 
ble of being afterwards verified as facts. I have a 
much higher respect for Mr. Mill's opinion than for 
M. Comte's^^j but I do not think that this rule will be 
found of any value. It appears to me to be tainted 
with the vice which I have already noted, of throwing 
the whole burthen of explanation upon the unex- 
plained word fact — unexplained in any joermanent 
and definite opposition to theory. As I have said, 
the Newtonian theory is a fact. Every true theory 
is a fact. Nor does the distinction become more clear 
by Mr. Mill's examples. " The vortices of Descartes 
would have been," he says, "a perfectly legitimate 
hypothesis, if it had been possible by any mode of 
explanation which we could entertain the hope of 
possessing, to bring the question whether such vortices 
exist or not, within the reach of our observing facul- 
ties." But this was possible, and was done. The free 



19 I have given elsewhere (see last discovery of his is a mere assump- 
chapter) reasons why I cannot assign tion. I conceive that I have shown 
to M. Corate's PhilosopMe Positive that his representation of the history 
any great value as a contribution to of science is en-oueous, both in its 
the philosophy of science. In this details and in its generalities. His 
judgment I conceive that I am sup- distinction of the three stages of sci- 
ported by the best philosophers of ences, the theological, metaphysical, 
our time. M. Comte owes, I think, and positive, is not at all supported 
much of the notice which has been by the facts of scientific history, 
given to him to his including, as Mr. E,eal discoveries always involve what 
Mill does, the science of society and he calls metajjhysics ; and the doc- 
of human nature in his scheme, trine of final causes in physiology, 
and to his boldness in dealing with the main element of science which 
these. He appears to have been re- can properly be called theological, 
ceived with deference as a mathe- is retained at the end, as well as the 
matician : but Sir John Herschel has beginning of the science, by all ex- 
shown that a supposed astronomical cept a peculiar school, 

T 2 



I 



276 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

passage of comets through the spaces in which these 
vortices should have been, convinced men that these 
vortices did not exist. In like manner Mr. Mill re- 
jects the hypothesis of a luminiferous ether, '' because 
it can neither be seen, heard, smelt, tasted, or touched." 
It is a strange complaint to make of the vehicle of 
light, that it cannot be heard, smelt, or tasted. Its 
vibrations can be seen. The fringes of shadows for 
instance, show its vibrations, just as the visible lines 
of waves near the shore show the undulations of the 
sea. Whether this can be touched, that is, whe- 
ther it resists motion, is hardly yet clear. I am far 
from saying there are not difficulties on this point, 
with regard to all theories which suppose a medium. 
But there are no more difficulties of this kind in the 
undulatory theory of light, than there are in Fourier's 
theory of heat, which M. Comte adopts as a model of 
scientific investigation ; or in the theory of voltaic 
currents, about which Mr. Mill appears to have no 
doubt; or of electric atmospheres, which, though gene- 
rally obsolete, Mr. Mill appears to favour; for though 
it had been said that we feel such atmospheres, no one 
had said that they have the other attributes of matter. 
YIII. Newton s Vera Causa. — 54. Mr. Mill con- 
ceives (ii. 17) that his own rule concerning hypotheses 
coincides with Newton's Rule, that the cause assumed 
must be a vera causa. But he allows that " Mr. 
Whe well... has had little difficulty in showing that his 
(ISTewton's) conception was neither precise nor consis- 
tent with itself" He also allows that "Mr. Whew ell 
is clearly right in denying it to be necessary that 
the cause assigned should be a cause already known; 
else how could we ever become acquainted with new 
causes'?" These points being agreed upon, I think that 
a little further consideration will lead to the conviction 
that Newton's Bule of philosophizing will best become 
a valuable guide, if we understand it as asserting that 
when the explanation of two or more different kinds 
of phenomena (as the revolutions of the planets, the 
fall of a stone, and the precession of the equinoxes,) 
lead us to tlie same cause, such a coincidence gives a 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 277 

reality to the cause. We have, in fact, in such a case, 
a Consilience of Inductions, 

55. When Mr. Mill condemns me (ii. 24) (using, 
however, expressions of civility which I gladly ac- 
knowledge,) for having recognized no mode of Induc- 
tion except that of trying hypothesis after hypothesis 
until one is found which fits the phenomena, I must 
beg to remind the readers of our works, that Mr. Mill 
himself allows (i. 363) that the process of finding a 
conception which binds together observed facts "is 
tentative, that it consists of a succession of guesses, 
many being rejected until one at last occurs fit to be 
chosen." I must remind them also that I have given 
a Section upon the Tests of Hypotheses, to which I 
have just referred, — that I have given various methods 
of Induction, as the Method of Gradation, the Method 
of Natural Classification, the Method of Curves, the 
Method of Means, the Method of Least Squares, the 
Method of Residues : all which I have illustrated by 
conspicuous examples from the History of Science; 
besides which, I conceive that what I have said of the 
Ideas belonging to each science, and of the construc- 
tion and explication of conceptions, will point out in 
each case, in what region we are to look for the In- 
ductive Element in order to make new discoveries. 
I have already ventured to say, elsewhere, that the 
methods which I have given, are as definite and prac- 
tical as any others which have been proposed, with the 
great additional advantage of being the methods by 
which all great discoveries in science have really been 
made. 

IX. Successive Generalizations. — ^6. There is one 
feature in the construction of science which Mr. Mill 
notices, but to which he does not ascribe, as I conceive, 
its due importance : I mean, that process by which we 
not only ascend from particular facts to a general law, 
but when this is done, ascend from the first general 
law to others more general ; and so on, proceeding to 
the highest point of generalization. This character of 
the scientific process was first clearly pointed out by 
Bacon, and is one of the most noticeable instances of 



2/8 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

Ms pliilosopliical sagacity. "There are," lie says, 'Hwo 
ways, and can be only two, of seeking and finding 
truth. The one from sense and particulars, takes a 
flight to the most general axioms, and from these 
principles and their truth, settled once for all, invents 
and judges of intermediate axioms. The other method 
collects axioms from sense and particulars, ascending 
continuously and hy degrees, so that in the end it 
arrives at the most general axioms:" meaning by 
axioms, laws or principles. The structure of the 
most complete sciences consists of several such steps, 
— -floors, as Bacon calls them, of successive generaliza- 
tion; and thus this structure may be exhibited as 
a kind of scientific pyramid. I have constructed this 
pyramid in the case of the science of Astronomy ^° : 
and I am gratified to find that the illustrious Hum- 
boldt approves of the design, and speaks of it as 
executed with complete success ^\ The capability of 
being exhibited in this form of successive generali- 
zations, arising from particulars upward to some very 
general law, is the condition of all tolerably perfect 
sciences ; and the steps of the successive generalizations 
are commonly the most important events in the history 
of the science. 

57. Mr. Mill does not reject this process of ge- 
neralization; but he gives it no conspicuous place, 
making it only one of three modes of reducing a law 
1 of causation into other laws. "There is," he says 

{\ I (i. 555), "the s^^6s^tm^^5^09^ of one law under another;... 

S; the gathering up of several laws into one more general 

law which includes them all. He adds afterwards, 
that the general law is the sum of the partial ones 
(i. 557), an expression which appears to me inadequate, 
for reasons which I have already stated. The general 
law is not the mere sum of the particular laws. It is, 
as I have already said, their amount in a new point of 



20 I have also, in the same place, in order that, in reading in the ordi- 

given the Inductive Pyramid for the nary way, we may proceed to the 

science of Optics. These Pyramids vertex. Phil. Ind. Sc. b. xi. c. vi. 
are necessarily inverted in their form, 21 Cosmos, vol. ii note 35. 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 279 

view. A. new conception is introduced ; thus, Newton 
did not merely add together the laws of the motions 
of the moon and of the planets, and of the satellites, 
and of the earth; he looked at them altogether as the 
result of a universal force of mutual gravitation; and 
therein consisted his generalization. And the like 
might be pointed out in other cases. 

58. I am the more led to speak of Mr. Mill as not 
having given due importance to this process of suc- 
cessive geueralization, by the way in which he speaks 
in another place (ii. 525) of this doctrine of Bacon. 
He conceives Bacon "to have been radically wrong 
when he enunciates, as a universal rule, that induction 
should proceed from the lowest to the middle prin- 
ciples, and from those to the highest, never reversing 
that order, and consequently, leaving no room for thte 
discovery of new principles by way of deduction ^^ at 
all." 

59. I conceive that the Inductive Table of As- 
tronomy, to which I have already referred, shows that 
in that science, — the most complete which has yet ex- 
isted, — the history of the science has gone on, as to its 
general movement, in accordance with the view which 
Bacon's sagacity enjoined. The successive generaliza- 
tions, so Jar as they were true, were made by successive 
generations. I conceive also that the Inductive Table of 
Optics shows the same thing; and this, without taking 
for granted the truth of the TJndulatory Theory; for 
with regard to all the steps of the progress of the 
science, lower than that highest one, there is, I con- 
ceive, no controversy. 

60. Also, the Science of Mechanics, although Mr. 
Mill more especially refers to it, as a case in which the 



22 The reader will probably recol- as when from the most general prin- 

lect that as Induction means the in- ciples of Geometry or of Mechanics, 

ference of general propositions from we prove some less general theorem ; 

particular cases, Deduction means the for instance, the number of the possi- 

inference by the application of gene- ble regular solids, or the principle of 

ral propositions to particular cases, vis viva. 
and by combining such applications; 



28o PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

highest generalizations (for example the Laws of Mo- 
tion) were those earliest ascertained with any scientific 
exactness, will, I think, on a more careful examination 
of its history, be found remarkably to confirm Bacon's 
view. For, in that science, we have, in the first place, 
very conspicuous examples of the vice of the method 
pursued by the ancients in flying to the highest gene- 
ralizations first ; as when they made their false distinc- 
tions of the laws of natural and violent motions, and of 
terrestrial and celestial motions. Many erroneous laws 
of motion were asserted through neglect of facts or 
want of experiments. And when Galileo and his school 
had in some measure succeeded in discovering some of 
the true laws of the motions of terrestrial bodies, they 
did not at on^e assert them as general : for they did 
ilot at all apply those laws to the celestial motions. 
As I have remarked, all Kepler's speculations respect- 
ing the causes of the motions of the planets, went upon 
the supposition that the First Law of terrestrial Motion 
did not apply to celestial bodies ; but that, on the con- 
trary, some continual force was requisite to keep up, 
as well as to originate, the planetary motions. Nor 
did Descartes, though he enunciated the Laws of 
Motion with more generality than his predecessors, 
(but not with exactness,) venture to trust the planets 
to those laws; on the contrary, he invented his ma- 
chinery of Yortices in order to keep up the motions 
of the heavenly bodies. Newton was the first who 
extended the laws of terrestrial motion to the celestial 
spaces; and in doing so, he used all the laws of the 
celestial motions which had previously been discovered 
by more limited inductions. To these instances, I may 
add the gradual generalization of the third Law of mo- 
tion by Huyghens, the Bernoullis, and Herman, which 
I have described in the History"^ as preceding that 
Period of Deduction, to which the succeeding narrative^* 
is appropriated. In Mechanics, then, we have a cardi- 
nal example of the historically gradual and successive 



23 B. vi. C. V. 24 c. vi 



MR. mill's logic. 28 1 

ascent of science from particulars to the most general 
laws. 

61. The Science of Hydrostatics may appear to 
offer a more favourable example of the ascent to the 
most general laws, without going through the inter- 
mediate particular laws ; and it is true, with reference 
to this science, as I have observed ^^, that it does exhibit 
the peculiarity of our possessing the most general 
principles on which the phenomena depend, and from 
which many cases of special facts are explained by 
deduction; while other cases cannot be so explained, 
from the want of principles intermediate between the 
highest and the lowest. And I have assigned, as the 
reason of this peculiarity, that the general principles 
of the Mechanics of Pluids were not obtained with 
reference to the science itself, but by extension from 
the sister science of the Mechanics of Solids. The 
two sciences are parts of the same Inductive Pyramid ; 
and having reached the summit of this Pyramid on 
one side, we are tempted to descend on the other from 
the highest generality to more narrow laws. Yet even 
in this science, the best part of our knowledge is 
mainly composed of inductive laws, obtained by in- 
ductive examination of particular classes of facts. The 
mere mathematical investigations of the laws of waves, 
for instance, have not led to any results so valuable as 
the experimental researches of Bremontier, Emy, the 
Webers, and Mr. Scott Russell. And in like manner 
in Acoustics, the Mechanics of Elastic Fluids ^^, the 
deductions of mathematicians made on general princi- 
ples have not done so much for our knowledge, as 
the cases of vibrations of plates and pipes examined 
experimentally by Chladni, Savart, Mr. Wheatstone 
and Mr. Willis. We see therefore, even in these 
sciences, no reason to slight the wisdom which exhorts 
us to ascend from particulars to intermediate laws, 
rather than to hope to deduce these latter better from 
the more general laws obtained once for all. 



-5 Hist b. vL c. vi. sect. 13. 
i'S Hist Ind. Sc. b. viii. 



282 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 



62. Mr. Mill himself indeed, not withstanding that 
he slights Bacon's injunction to seek knowledge by 
proceeding from less general to more general laws, 
has given a rery good reason why this is commonly 
necessary and T^-ise. He says (ii. 526), "Before we 
attempt to explain deductively, from more general laws, 
any new class of phenomena, it is desirable to have 
gone as far as is practicable in ascertaining the em- 
pirical laws of these phenomena ; so as to compare the 
results of deduction, not with one individual instance 
after another, but with general propositions expressive 
of the points of agreement which have been found 
among many instances. For," he adds with great 
justice, "if Newton had been obliged to verify the 
theory of gravitation, not by deducing from it Kepler's 
laws, but by deducing all the observed planetary posi- 
tions which had served Kepler to establish those laws, 
the Newtonian theory would probably never have 
emerged from the state of an hypothesis." To which 
we may add, that it is certain, from the history of the 
subject, that in that case the hypothesis would never 
have been framed at all. 

X. Mr. Miirs Hope from Deduction. — 6 2,. Mr. 
Mill expresses a hope of the efficacy of Deduction, 
rather than Induction, in promoting the future pro- 
gress of Science; which hope, so far as the physical 
sciences are concerned, appears to me at variance with 
all the lessons of the history of those sciences. He 
says (i. 579), "that the advances henceforth to be 
expected even in physical, and still more in mental and 
social science, will be chiefly the result of deduction, 
is evident from the general considerations already 
adduced:" these considerations being, that the phe- 
nomena to be considered are very complex, and are 
the result of many known causes, of which we have 
to disentangle the results. 

64. I cannot but take a very different view from 
this. I think that any one, looking at the state of 
physical science, will see that there are still a vast 
mass of cases, in which we do not at all know the 
causes, at least, in theii' full generality; and that the 



MR. mill's logic. 283 

knowledge of new causes, and the generalization of 
the laws of those already known, can only be obtained 
by new inductive discoveries. Except by new In- 
ductions, equal, in their efficacy for grouping together 
phenomena in new points of view, to any which have 
yet been performed in the history of science, how are 
"we to solve such questions as those which, in the 
survey of what we already know, force themselves 
upon our minds? Such as, to take only a few of 
the most obvious examples — What is the nature of 
the connexion of heat and light? How does heat 
produce the expansion, liquefaction and vaporization 
of bodies? What is the nature of the connexion 
between the optical and the chemical properties of 
light ? What is the relation between optical, crystal- 
line and chemical polarity? What is the connexion 
between the atomic constitution and the physical quali- 
ties of bodies? What is the tenable definition of a 
mineral species? What is the true relation of the 
apparently different types of vegetable life (monoco- 
tyledons, dicotyledons, and cryptogamous plants) ? 
What is the relation of the various types of animal 
life (vertebrates, articulates, radiates, &c.)? What is 
the number, and what are the distinctions of the Vital 
Powers? What is the internal constitution of the 
earth ? These, and many other questions of equal 
interest, no one, I suppose, expects to see solved by 
deduction from principles akeady known. But we 
can, in many of them, see good hope of progress by 
a large use of induction ; including, of course, copious 
and careful experiments and observations. 

65. With such questions before us, as have now 
been suggested, I can see nothing but a most mischiev- 
ous narrowing of the field and enfeebling of the spirit 
of scientific exertion, in the doctrine that "Deduction 
is the great scientific work of the present and of future 
ages;" and that "A revolution is peaceably and pro- 
gressively effecting itself in philosophy the reverse of 
that to which Bacon has attached his name." I trust, 
on the contrary, that we have many new laws of 
nature still to discover; and that our race is destined 



W] 



284 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

to obtain a sight of wider truths than any we yet dis- 
cern, including, as cases, the general laws we now 
know, and obtained from these known laws as they 
must be, by Induction. 

66. I can see, however, reasons for the compara- 
tively greater favour with which Mr. Mill looks upon 
Deduction, in the views to which he has mainly directed 
his attention. The explanation of remarkable pheno- 
mena by known laws of Nature, has, as I have already 
said, a greater charm for many minds than the dis- 
covery of the laws themselves. In the case of such 
explanations, the problem proposed is more definite, 
and the solution more obviously complete. For the 
process of induction includes a mysterious step, by 
which we pass from particulars to generals, of which 
step the reason always seems to be inadequately ren- 
dered by any words which we can use; and this step 
to most minds is not demonstrative, as to few is it 
given to perform it on a great scale. But the process 
of explanation of facts by known laws is deductive, and 
has at every step a force like that of demonstration, 
producing a feeling peculieirly gratifying to the clear 
intellects which are most capable of following the 
process. We may often see instances in which this 
admiration for deductive skill appears in an extrava- 
gant measure; as when men compare Laplace with 
Newton. Nor should I think it my business to argue 
1 against such a preference, unless it were likely to leave 

us too well satisfied with what we know already, to 
chill our hope of scientific progress, and to prevent our 
making any farther strenuous efibrts to ascend, higher 
than we have yet done, the mountain-chain which 
■ , limits human knowledge. 

I. f 67. But there is another reason which, I conceive, 

' • operates in leading Mr. Mill to look to Deduction as 

the principal means of future progress in knowledge, 
and which is a reason of considerable weight in the 
subjects of research which, as I conceive, he mainly 
has in view. In the study of our own minds and of 
the laws which govern the history of society, I do not 
think that it is very likely that we shall hereafter 



MR. mill's logic. 285 

arrive at any wider principles than those of which we 
already possess some considerable knowledge ; and this, 
for a special reason; namely, that our knowledge in 
such cases is not gathered by mere external observation 
of a collection of external facts ; but acquired by atten- 
tion to internal facts, our own emotions, thoughts, and 
springs of action; facts are connected by ties existing 
in our own consciousness, and not in mere observed 
juxtaposition, succession, or similitude. How the 
character, for instance, is influenced by various causes, 
(an example to which Mr. Mill repeatedly refers, ii. 
518, &c.), is an inquiry which may perhaps be best 
conducted by considering what we know of the influ- 
ence of education and habit, government and occupa- 
tion, hope and fear, vanity and pride, and the like, 
upon men's characters, and by tracing the various 
eflects of the intermixture of such influences. Yet 
even here, there seems to be room for the discovery of 
laws in the way of experimental inquiry : for instance, 
what share race or family has in the formation of 
character ; a question which can hardly be solved to 
any purpose in any other way than by collecting and 
classing instances. And in the same way, many of 
the principles which regulate the material wealth of 
states, are obtained, if not exclusively, at least most 
clearly and securely, by induction from large surveys 
of facts. Still, however, I am quite ready to admit 
that in Mental and Social Science, we are much less 
likely than in Physical Science, to obtain new truths 
by any process which can be distinctively termed In- 
duction; and that in those sciences, what may be called 
Deductions from principles of thought and action of 
which we are already conscious, or to which we assent 
when they are felicitously picked out of our thoughts 
and put into words, must have a large share; and I 
may add, that this observation of Mr. Mill appearfe to 
me to be important, and, in its present connexion, new. 
XI. Fundamental opposition of our doctrines. — 
68. I have made nearly all the remarks which I 
now think it of any consequence to make upon Mr. 
Mill's Logic, so far as it bears upon the doctrines con- 
tained in my History and Philosophy. And yet there 




286 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOTERY. 

remains still untouched one great question, involvino- 
probably the widest of all the differences between him 
and me. I mean the question whether geometrical 
axioms, (and, as similar in their evidence to these, all 
axioms,) be truths derived from experience, or be neces- 
sary truths in some deeper sense. This is one of the 
fundamental questions of philosophy; and all persons 
who take an interest in metaphysical discussions, know 
that the two opposite opinions have been maintained 
with great zeal in all ages of speculation. To me it 
appears that there are two distinct elements in our 
knowledge, Experience, without, and the Mind, with- 
in. Mr. Mill derives all our knowledge from Experi- 
ence alone. In a question thus going to the root of all 
knowledge, the opposite arguments must needs cut deep 
on both sides. Mr. Mill cannot deny that our know- 
ledge of geometrical axioms and the like, seems to be 
necessary. I cannot deny that our knowledge, axiomatic 
as well as other, never is acquired ivithout experience. 

6g. Perhaps ordinary readers may despair of fol- 
lowing our reasonings, when they find that they can 
only be made intelligible by supposing, on the one 
hand, a person who thinks distinctly and yet has never 
seen or felt any external object; and on the other 
hand, a person who is transferred, as Mr. Mill supposes 
(ii. IT 7), to "distant parts of the stellar regions where 
the phenomena may be entirely unlike those with 
which we are acquainted," and where even the axiom 
that every effect must have a cause, does not hold good. 
Nor, in truth, do I think it necessary here to spend 
many words on this subject. Probably, for those who 
take an interest in this discussion, most of the aro-u- 
ments on each side have already been put forwards with 
sufiicient repetition. I have, in an "Essay on the 
Fundamental Antithesis of Philosophy," and in some 
accompanying " Eemarks," printed"^ at the end of the 
second edition of my Philosojjhy, given my reply to 
what has been said on this subject, both by Mr. Mill, 
and by the author of a very able critique on my His- 



27 Keprinted in the Appendix to this volume. 



MR. mill's logic. 287 

tory and Philosophy wMch appeared in the Quarterly 
Review in 1841 : and I will not liere attempt to revive 
the general discussion. 

70. Perhaps I may be allowed to notice, that in 
one part of Mr. Mill's work where this subject is 
treated, there is the appearance of one of the parties 
to the controversy pronouncing judgment in his own 
cause. This indeed is a temptation which it is especi- 
ally difficult for an author to resist, who writes a 
treatise upon Fallacies, the subject of Mr. Mill's fifth 
Book. In such a treatise, the writer has an easy way 
of disposing of adverse opinions by classing them as 
" Fallacies, " and putting them side by side with opini- 
ons universally acknowledged to be false. In this way, 
Mr. INIill has dealt with several points which are still, 
as I conceive, matters of controversy (ii. 357, &c.) 

71. But undoubtedly, Mr. Mill has given his 
argument against my opinions with great distinct- 
ness in another place (i. 319). In order to show 
that it is merely habitual association which gives 
to an experimental truth the character of a neces- 
sary truth, he quotes the case of the laws of motion, 
which were really discovered from experiment, but are 
now looked upon as the only conceivable laws; and 
especially, what he conceives as " the reductio ad ah- 
surdum of the theory of inconceivableness," an opinion 
which I had ventured to throw out, that if we could 
conceive the Composition of bodies distinctly, we might 
be able to see that it is necessary that the modes of 
their composition should be definite. I do not think 
that readers in general will see anything absurd in 
the opinion, that the laws of Mechanics, and even the 
laws of the Chemical Composition of bodies, may de- 
pend upon principles as necessary as the properties of 
space and number ; and that this necessity, though not 
at all perceived by persons who have only the ordinary 
obscure and confused notions on such subjects, may be 
evident to a mind which has, by efibrt and discipline, 
rendered its ideas of Mechanical Causation, Elementary 
Composition and Difierence of Kind, clear and precise. 
It may easily be, I conceive, that while such necessary 




288 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

principles are perceived to be necessary only by a few- 
minds of bigbly cultivated insight, such principles as 
the axioms of Geometry and Arithmetic may be per- 
ceived to be necessary by all minds which have any 
habit of abstract thought at all : and I conceive also, 
that though these axioms are brought into distinct 
view by a certain degree of intellectual cultivation, 
they may still be much better described as conditions 
of experience, than as results of experience : — as laws 
of the mind and of its activity, rather than as facts 
impressed upon a mind merely passive. 

XII. Absurdities in Mr. MilVs Logic. — 72. I 
will not pursue the subject further : only, as the ques- 
tion has arisen respecting the absurdities to which 
each of the opposite doctrines leads. I will point out 
opinions connected with this subject, which Mr. jMill 
has stated in various parts of his book. 

He holds (i. 317) that it is merely from habit that 
we are unable to conceive the last point of space or 
the last histant of time. He holds (ii. 360) that it is 
strange that any one should rely upon the a priori 
evidence that space or extension is infinite, or that no- 
thing can be made of nothing. He holds (i. 304) that 
the first law of motion is rigorously true, but that the 
axioms respecting the lever are only approximately tme. 
He holds (ii. no) that there may be sidereal firma- 
ments in which events succeed each other at random, 
without obeying any laws of causation ; although one 
might suppose that even if space and cause ai-e both to 
have their limits, still they might terminate together : 
and then, even on this bold supposition, we should no 
where have a woi-ld in which events were casual. He 
holds (ii. Ill) that the axiom, that every event must 
have a cause, is established by means of an " induction 
by simple enumeration : " and in like manner, that 
the principles of number and of geometry are proved 
by this method of simple enumeration alone. He 
ascribes the proof (i. 162) of the axiom, " things which 
are equal to the same are equal to each other," to the 
fact that this proposition has been perpetually ybw?ic/ 
true and never false. He holds (i. 338) that "In all 



MR. mill's logic. 289 

proj^ositions concerning numbers, a condition is im- 
plied, without which none of them would be true ; and 
that condition is an assumption which may he false. 
The condition is that i = 1." 

73. Mr. Mill farther holds (i. 309), that it is a 
characteristic property of geometrical forms, that they 
are capable of being painted in the imagination with a 
distinctness equal to reality : — that our ideas of forms 
exactly resemble our sensations : which, it is implied, 
is not the case with regard t6 any other class of our 
ideas ; — that we thus may have mental pictures of all 
possible combinations of lines and angles, which are 
as fit subjects of geometrical experimentation as the 
realities themselves. He says, that " we know that 
the imaginary lines exactly resemble real ones;" and 
that we obtain this knowledge respecting the character- 
istic property of the idea of space by experience ; though 
it does not appear how we can compare our ideas with 
the realities, since we know the realities only by our 
ideas; or why this property of their resemblance should 
be confined to one class of ideas alone. 

74. I have now made such remarks as appear to 
me to be necessary, on the most important parts of 
Mr. Mill's criticism of my Philosophy. I hope I have 
avoided urging any thing in a contentious manner j as 
I have certainly written with no desii^e of controversy, 
but only with a view to ofier to those who may be will- 
ing to receive it, some explanation of portions of my 
previous writings. I have already said, that if this 
had not have been my especial object, I could with 
pleasure have noted the passages of Mr. Mill's Logic 
which I admire, rather than the points in which we 
differ. I will in a very few words refer to some of 
these points, as the most agreeable way of taking leave 
of the dispute. 

I say then that Mr. Mill appears to me especially 
instructive in his discussion of the nature of the proof 
which is conveyed by the syllogism ; and that his 
doctrine, that the force of the syllogism consists in an 
inductive assertion, with an interpretation added to it, 
solves very hapi)ily the difficulties which baffle the 



290 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

other theories of this subject. I think that this doctrine 
of his is made still more instructive, by his excepting 
from it the cases of Scriptural Theology and of Positive 
Law (i. 260), as cases in which general propositions, 
not particular facts, are our original data. I consider 
also that the recognition oi Kinds (i. 166) as classes in 
which we have, not a finite but an inexhaustible body 
of resemblances among individuals, and as gi'oups 
made by nature, not by mere definition, is very valu- 
able, as stopping the inroad to an endless train of false 
j)hilosophy. I conceive that he takes the right ground 
in his answer to Hume's argument against miracles 
(ii. 183) : and I admire the acuteness with which he 
has criticized Laplace's tenets on the Doctrine of 
Chances, and the candour with which he has, in the 
second edition, acknowledged oversights on this sub- 
ject made in the first. I think that much, I may 
almost say all, which he says on the subject of Lan- 
guage, is very philosophical ; for instance, what he 
says (ii. 238) of the way in which words acquire their 
meaning in common use. I especially admire the acute- 
ness and force with which he has shown (ii. 255) how 
moral principles expressed in words degenerate into 
formulas, and yet how the formula cannot be rejected 
without a moral loss. This "perpetual oscillation in 
spiritual truths," as he happily terms it, has never, 
I think, been noted in the same broad manner, and 
is a subject of most instructive contemplation. And 
though I have myself refrained from associating moral 
and political with physical science in my study of the 
subject, I see a great deal which is full of promise 
for the future progress of moral and political know- 
ledge in Mr. Mill's sixth Book, " On the Logic of the 
Moral and Political Sciences." Even his arrangement 
of the various methods which have been or may be 
followed in " the Social Science," — " the Chemical or 
Experimental Method," " the Geometrical or Abstract 
Method," "the Physical or Concrete Deductive Me- 
thod," *Hhe Inverse Deductive or Historical Method," 
though in some degree fanciful and forced, abounds 
with valuable suggestions; and his estimate of "the 



MR. MILLS LOGIC. 29 1 

interesting philosophy of the Bentham school," the 
main example of "the geometrical method," is in- 
teresting and philosophical. On some future occasion, ' 
I may, perhaps, venture into the region of which Mr. 
Mill has thus essayed to map the highways: for it 
is from no despair either of the great progress to be 
made in such truth as that here referred to, or of 
the effect of philosophical method in arriving at such 
truth, that I have, in what I have now written, con- 
fined myself to the less captivating but more definite 
part of the subject. 



u 2 



CHAPTER XXIII 

Political Economy as an Inductive Science. 



{Moral Sciences.) — i. Both M. Comte and Mr. Mill, 
in speaking of the methods of advancing science, aim, as 
I have said, at the extension of their methods to moral 
subjects, and aspire to suggest means for the augmen- 
tation of our knowledge of ethical, political, and social 
truths. I have not here ventured upon a like exten- 
sion of my conclusions, because I wished to confine my 
views of the philosophy of discovery to the cases in 
which all allow that solid and permanent discoveries 
have been made. Moreover in the case of moral spe- 
culations, we have to consider not only observed exter- 
nal facts and the ideas by which they are colligated, 
but also internal facts, in which the instrument of 
observation is consciousness, and in which observations 
and ideas are mingled together, and act and react in a 
peculiar manner. It may therefore be doubted whether 
the methods which have been effectual in the discovery 
of physical theories will not require to be greatly mo- 
dified, or replaced by processes altogether different, 
when we would make advances in ethical, jDolitical, or 
social knowledge. In ethics, at least, it seems plain 
that we must take our starting-point not without but 
within us. Our mental powers, our affections, our rea- 
son, and any other faculties which we have, must be the 
basis of our convictions. And in this field of know- 
ledge, the very form of our highest propositions is dif- 
ferent from what it is in the physical sciences. In 
Physics we examine what is, in a form more or less 
general : in Ethics we seek to determine what ought 
to be, as the highest rule, which is supreme over all 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 293 

others. In tliis case we cannot expect tlie methods of 
physical discovery to aid us. 

But others of the subjects which I have mentioned, 
though strongly marked and influenced by this ethical 
element, are still of a mixed character, and require 
also observation of external facts of human, individual, 
and social conduct, and generalizations derived from 
such observations. The facts of political constitutions 
and social relations in communities of men, and the 
histories of such communities, afibrd large bodies of 
materials for political and social science; and it seems 
not at all unlikely that such science may be governed, 
in its formation and jDrogress, by laws like those which 
govern the physical sciences, and may be steered clear 
of errors and directed towards truths by an attention 
to the forms which error and truth have assumed in 
the most stable and certain sciences. The different 
forms of society, and the principal motives which ope- 
rate upon men regarded in masses, may be classified 
as facts j and though our consciousness of what we our- 
selves are and the affections which we ourselves feel 
are always at work in our interpretations of such facts, 
yet the knowledge which we thus obtain may lead us 
to bodies of knowledge which we may call Scieiices, 
and compare with the other sciences as to their form 
and maxims. 

{Political Economy.) — 2. Among such bodies of 
knowledge, I may notice as a specimen, the science of 
Political Economy, and may compare it with other 
sciences in the respects which have been referred to. 

M. Comte has given a few pages to the discussion of 
this science of Political Economy^; but what he has 
said amounts only to a few vague remarks on Adam 
Smith and Destutt de Tracy; his main object being, 
it would seem, to introduce his usual formula, and to 
condemn all that has hitherto been done (with which 
there is no evidence that he is adequately acquainted) 
as worthless, because it is "theological," "metaphysi- 
cal," " literary," and not ''positive.^' 



1 PJdl. Pos. t iv. p. 264- 



^94 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 



Mr. Mill has much more distinctly characterized the 
plan and form of Political Economy in his system \ 
He regards this science as that which deals with the 
results which take place in human society in conse- 
quence of the desire of wealth. He explains, however, 
that it is only for the sake of convenience that one of 
the motives which operate upon man is thus insulated 
and treated as if it were the only one: — that there are 
other principles, for instance, the principles on which 
' the progress of population depends, which co-operate 
with the main principle, and materially modify its re- 
sults : and he gives reasons why this mode of simplify- 
ing the study of social phenomena tends to promote 
the progress of systematic knowledge. 

Instead of discussing these reasons, I will notice the 
way in which the speculations of political economists 
have exemplified tendencies to error, and corrections 
of those tendencies, of the same nature as those 
which we have already noticed in speaking of other 
sciences. 

( Wages, Profits, and Rent.) — 3. We may regard as 
one of the first important steps in this science, Adam 
Smith's remark, that the value or price of any article 
bought and sold consists of three elements, Wages, Profits, 
and Pent. Some of the most important of subsequent 
speculations were attempts to determine the laws of each 
of these three elements. At first it might be supposed 
that there ought to be added to them a fourth element. 
Materials, But upon consideration it will be seen that 
materials, as an element of price, resolves itself into 
wages and rent; for all materials derive their value 
from the labour which is bestowed upon them. The 
iron of the ploughshare costs just what it costs to sink 
the mine, dig up and smelt the iron. The wood of the 
frame costs what it costs to cut down the tree, together 
with the rent of the ground on which it grows. 

{Premature Generalizations.) — 4. But what deter- 
mines "Wages? — The amount of persons seeking work, 



s Logic, b. vi. c. 3. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 295 

that is, speaking loosely, tlie population ; and the amount 
of money which is devoted to the payment of wages. 
And what determines the population? It was replied, 
' — ^the means of subsistence. And how does the popu- 
lation tend to increase? — In a geometrical ratio. And 
how does the subsistence tend to increase? — At most in 
an arithmetical ratio. And hence it was inferred that 
the population tends constantly to run beyond the 
means of subsistence, and will be limited by a threat- 
ened deficiency of these means. And the wages paid 
must be such as to form this limit. And therefore the 
wages paid will always be such as just to keep up the 
population in its ordinary state of progress. Here 
was one general proposition which was gathered from 
summary observations of society. 

Again : as to Kent : Adam Smith had treated Rent 
as if it were a monopoly price — the result of a mono- 
poly of the land by the landowners. But subsequent 
writers acutely remarked that land is of various de- 
grees of fertility, and there is some land which barely 
pays the cultivator, if cultivating it he pay no rent. 
And rent can be afforded for other land only in so far 
as it is better than this bad land. And thus, there 
was obtained another general proposition; that the 
Hent of good land was just equal to the excess of its 
produce over the worst cultivable land. 

Now these two propositions are example.^ of a hasty 
and premature generalization, like that from which 
the sweeping physical systems of antiquity were de- 
rived. They were examples of that process which 
Francis Bacon calls miticijjation ; in which we leap at 
once from a few facts to propositions of the highest 
generality; and supposing these to be securely esta- 
blished, proceed to draw a body of conclusions from 
them, and thus frame a system. 

And what is the sounder and wiser mode of pro- 
ceeding in order to obtain a science of such things? 
We must classify the facts which we observe, and take 
care that we do not ascribe to the facts in our imme- 
diate neighbourhood or specially under our notice, a 
generality of prevalence which does not belong to 



296 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

tliem. We must proceed by the ladder of Induction, 
and be sure we have obtained the narrower generaliza- 
tions, before we aspire to the widest. 

{Correction of them hy Induction. Rent.)—^. For in- 
stance ; in the case of the latter of the above two pro- 
positions — that Rent is the excess of the produce of 
good soils over the worst — that is the case in England 
and Scotland; but is it the case in other countries'? 
Let us see. Why is it the case in England? Because 
if the rent demanded for good land were more than the 
excess of the produce over bad land, the farmer would 
prefer the bad land as more gainful. If the rent de- 
manded for good land were less than the excess, the 
bad land would be abandoned by the farmer. 

But all this goes upon the supposition that the far- 
mer can remove from good land to bad, or from bad to 
good, or apply his capital in some other way than 
farming, according as it is more gainful. This is true 
in England; but is it true all over the world? 

By no means. It is true in scarcely any other part 
of the world. In almost every other part of the world 
the cultivator is bound to the land, so that he cannot 
remove himself and his capital from it; and cannot, 
because he is not satisfied with his position upon it, 
seek and find a position and a subsistence elsewhere. 
On the contrary, he is bound by the laws and customs 
of the country, by constitution, history and character, 
so that he cannot, or can only with great difficulty, 
change his plan and mode of life. And thus over 
great part of the world the fundamental supposition on 
which rests the above generalization respecting Kent is 
altogether false. 

An able political economist^ has taken the step, 
which as we have said, sound philosophy would have 
prescribed : he has classified the states of society which 
exist or have existed on the earth, as they bear on this 
point, the amount of Bent. He has classified the 
modes in which the produce is, in difierent countries 



Jones, On Rent, 1833. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 297 

and different stages of society, divided between the 
cultivator and the proprietor : and he finds that the na- 
tural divisions are these: — Serf Rents, that is, labour 
rents paid by the Cultivator to the Landowner, as in 
E-ussia : Metayer Rents, where the produce is divided be- 
tween the Cultivator and the Landowner, as in Central 
Europe : Ryot Rents, where a portion of the produce is 
paid to the Sovereign as Landlord, as in India : Cottier 
Rents, where a money-rent is paid by a Cultivator who 
raises his own subsistence from the soil ; and Farmers^ 
Rents, where a covenanted Rent is paid by a person 
employing labourers. In this last case alone is it true 
that the Rent is equal to the excess of good over bad 
soils. 

The error of the conclusion, in this case, arises from 
assuming the mobility of capital and labour in cases in 
which it is not moveable : which is much as if mecha- 
nicians had reasoned respecting rigid bodies, supposing 
them to be fluid bodies. 

But the error of method was in not classifying the 
facts of societies before jumping to a conclusion which 
was to be applicable to all societies. 

( Wages.) — 6. And in like manner there is an error of 
the same kind in the assertion of the other general 
principles : — that wages are determined by the capital 
which is forthcoming for the payment of wages; and 
that population is determined in its progress by wages. 
For there is a vast mass of population on the surface 
of the earth which does not live upon wages : and 
though in England the greater part of the people lives 
upon wages, in the rest of the world the part that 
does so is small. And in this case, as in the other, 
we must class these facts as they exist in different 
nations, before we can make assertions of any wide 
generality. 

Mr. Jones ^ classed the condition of labourers in dif- 
ferent countries in the same inductive manner in which 
he classed the tenure of land. He pointed out that 



4 Literary Bemaiii.% 1859. 



298 .PHILOSOPHY OP DISCOVERY. 

there are three broad distinct classes of them : Unhired 
Labourers, who cultivate the ground which they oc- 
cupy, and live on self-'produced wages; Paid Depend- 
ants, who are paid ^ut of the revenue or income of 
their employers, as the military retainers and domestic 
artizans of feudal times in Europe, and the greater 
part of the people of Asia at the present day; and 
Hired Labourers, who are paid wages from capital. 

This last class, though taken as belonging to the 
normal condition of society by many political econo- 
mists, is really the exceptional case, taking the world 
at large; and no propositions concerning the structure 
and relations of ranks in society can have any wide 
generality which are founded on a consideration of 
this case alone. 

{Population.) — 7. And again : with regard to the pro- 
position that the progress of population depends merely 
on the rate of wages, a very little observation of dif- 
ferent communities, and of the same communities at 
different times, will show that this is a very rash and 
hasty generalization. When wages rise, whether or 
not population shall undergo a corresponding increase 
depends upon many other circumstances besides this 
single fact of the increase of wages. The effect of a 
rise of wages upon population is affected by the form 
of the wages, the time occupied by the change, the 
institutions of the society under consideration, a.nd 
other causes : and a due classification of the conditions 
of the society according to these circumstances, is re- 
quisite in order to obtain any general proposition con- 
cerning the effect of a rise or fall of wages upon the 
progress of the population. 

And thus those precepts of the philosophy of dis- 
covery which we have repeated so often, which are so 
simple, and which seem so obvious, have been neg- 
lected or violated in the outset of Political Economy 
as in so many other sciences: — ^namely, the precepts 
that Ave mvist classify our facts before we generalize, 
and seek for narrower generalizations and inductions 
before we aim at the widest. If these maxims had 
been obeyed, they would have saved the earlier specu- 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 299 

lators on this subject from some splendid errors; but, 
on the other hand, it may be said, that if these earlier 
speculators had not been thus bold, the science could 
not so soon have assumed that large and striking form 
which made it so attractive, and to which it probably 
owes a large part of its progress. 



CHAPTEE XXIV. 

Modern German Philosophy \ 



I. Science is the Idealization of Facts. 

I. I HAVE spoken, a few chapters back, of the E-eac- 
tion against the doctrines of the Sensational School in 
England and France. In Germany also there was a 
Reaction against these doctrines ; — but there, this move- 
ment took a direction different from its direction in 
other countries. Omitting many other names, Kant, 
Fichte, Schelling and Hegel may be regarded as the 
writers who mark, in a prominent manner, this Ger- 
manic line of speculation. The problem of philosophy, 
in the way in which they conceived it, may best be ex- 
plained by reference to that Fundamental Antithesis of 
which I had occasion to speak in the History of Scientific 
Ideas'^. And in order to characterize the steps taken 
by these modern German philosophers, I must return 
to what I have said concerning the Fundamental 
Antithesis. 

This Antithesis, as I have there remarked, is stated 
in various ways : — as the Antithesis of Thoughts and 
Things ; of Ideas and Sensations ; of Theory and Facts ; 
of Necessary Truth and Experience; of the Subjective 
and Objective elements of our knowledge; and in other 
phrases. I have further remarked that the elements 
thus spoken of, though opposed, are inseparable. We 
cannot have the one without the other. We cannot 
have thoughts without thinking of Things : we can- 
not have things before us without thinking of them. 



K 



1 The substance of tliis and the 
next chapter was printed as a com- 
munication to the Cambridge PhiL 



Soc. in 1840. 

2 Or in the earlier editions, in the 
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 30I 

Further, it lias been shown, I conceive, that our 
knowledge derives from the former of these two ele- 
ments, namely our Ideas, its form and character of 
knowledge ; our ideas being the necessary Forms of 
knowledge, while the Matter of our knowledge in each 
case is supplied by the appropriate perception or out- 
ward experience. 

Thus our Ideas of Space and Time are the neces- 
sary Forms of our geometrical and arithmetical know- 
ledge; and no sensations or experience are needed as 
the matter of such knowledge, except in so far as sen- 
sation and experience are needed to evoke our Ideas in 
any degree. And hence these sciences are sometimes 
called Formal sciences. All other Sciences involve, 
along with the experience and observation appropriate 
to each, a development of the ideal conditions of know- 
ledge existing in our minds; and I have given the 
history, both of this development of ideas and of the 
matter derived from experience, in two former works, 
the History of Scientific Ideas, and the History of the 
Inductive Sciences. I have there traced this history 
through the whole body of the physical sciences. 

But though Ideas and Perceptions are thus separate 
elements in our philosophy, they cannot in fact be 
distinguished and separated, but are different aspects 
of the same thing. And the only way in which we can 
approach to truth is by gradually and successively, in 
one instance after another, advancing from the percep- 
tion to the idea ; from the fact to the theory. 

2. I would now further observe, that in this pro- 
gression from fact to theory, we advance (when the 
theory is complete and completely possessed by the 
mind) from the apprehension of truths as actual to 
the apprehension of them as necessary; and thus Facts 
which were originally observed merely as Facts become 
the consequences of theory, and are thus brought with- 
in the domain of Ideas. That which was a part of the 
objective world becomes also a part of the subjective 
world ; a necessary pai-t of the thoughts of the theorist. 
And in this way the progress of true theory is the 
Idealization of Facts. 






■^ 



/ 



302 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. , 

Thus the Progress of Science consists in a per- 
petual reduction of Facts to Ideas. Portions are per- 
petually transferred from one side to another of the 
Fundamental Antithesis : namely, from the Objective 
to the Subjective side. The Centre or Fulcrum of the 
Antithesis is shifted by every movement which is 
made in the advance of science, and is shifted so that 
the ideal side gains something from the real side. 

3. I will proceed to illustrate this Proposition a 
little further. Necessary Truths belong to the Sub- 
jective, Observed Facts to the Objective side of our 
knowledge. Now in the progress of that exact 
speculative knowledge which we call Science, Facts 
which were at a previous period merely Observed 
Facts, come to be known as Necessary Truths; and 
the attempts at new advances in science generally 
introduce the representation of known truths of fact^ 
as included in higher and wider truths, and therefore, 
so far, neoessary. 

We may exemplify this progress in the history 
of the science of Mechanics. Thus the property of the 
lever, the inverse proportion of the weights and- arms, 
was known as a fact before the time of j^ristotle, and 
known as no more ; for he gives many fantastical and 
inapplicable reasons for the fact. But in the writings 
of Archimedes we find this fact brought within the 
domain of necessary truth. It was there transferred 
from the empirical to the ideal side of the Funda- 
mental Antithesis ; and thus a progressive step was 
made in science. In like manner, it was at fii'st 
) i| taken by Galileo as a mere fact of experience, that in 

a falling body, the velocity increases in proportion to 
the time ; but his followers have seen in this the 
necessary effect of the uniform force of gi-avity. In 
like manner, Kepler's empirical Laws were shown by 
Newton to be necessary results of a central force 
attracting inversely as the square of the distanca 
And if it be still, even at present, doubtful whether 
this is the necessary law of a central force, as some 
philosophers have maintained that it is, we cannot 
doubt that if now or hereafter, those philosophers 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 303 

coiild establish tlieir doctrine as certain, they would 
make an important step in science, in addition to 
tliose already made. 

And thus, such steps in science are made, whenever 
empirical facts are discerned to be necessary laws ; or, 
if I may be allowed to use a briefer expression, when- 
ever j'^cfe are idealized. 

4. In order to show how widely this statement is 
applicable, I will exemplify it in some of the other 
sciences. 

In Chemistry, not to speak of earlier steps in 
the science, which might be presented as instances of 
the same general process, we may remark that the 
analyses of various compounds into their elements, 
according to the quantity of the elements, form a vast 
multitude of facts, which were previously empirical 
only, but which are reduced to a law,- and therefore 
to a certain kind of ideal necessity, by the discovery 
of their being compounded according to definite and 
multiple proportions. And again, this very law of 
definite proportions, which may at first be taken as 
a law given by experience only, it has been attempted 
to make into a necessary truth, by asserting that 
bodies must necessarily consist of atoms, and atoms 
must necessarily combine in definite small numbers. 
And however doubtful this Atomic Theory may at 
present be, it will not be questioned that any chemical 
philosopher who could establish it, or any other 
Theory which would produce an equivalent change 
in the aspect of the science, would make a great 
scientific advance. And thus, in this Science also, 
the Progress of Science consists in the transfer of 
facts from the empirical to the necessary side of 
the antithesis ; or, as it was before expressed, in the 
idealization of facts. 

5. "We may illustrate the same process in the 
Natural History Sciences. The discovery of the 
principle of Morphology in plants was the reduction 
of a vast mass of Facts to an Idea ; as Schiller said 
to Gothe when he explained the discovery ; although 
the latter, cherishing a horror of the term Idea, 



IR! 



# 






i 



304 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

wliicli perhaps is quite as common in England as in 
Germany, was extremely vexed at being told that he 
possessed such furniture in his mind. The applications 
of this Principle to special cases, for instance, to 
Euphorbia by Brown, to Reseda by Lindley, have 
been attempts to idealize the facts of these special 
cases. 

6. We may apply the same view to steps in 
Science which are still under discussion ; — the question 
being, whether an advance has really been made in 
science or not. For instance, in Astronomy, the 
IsTebular Hypothesis has been propounded, as an 
explanation of many of the observed phenomena of 
the Universe. If this Hypothesis could be conceived 
ever to be established as a true Theory, this must be 
done by its taking into itself, as necessary parts of 
the whole Idea, many Facts which have already been 
observed ; such as the various form of nebulae ; — many 
Facts which it must require a long course of years to 
observe, such as the changes of nebulse from one form 
to another ; — and many facts which, so far as we can 
at present judge, are utterly at variance -with the Idea, 
such as the motions of satellites, the relations of the 
material elements of planets, the existence of vegetable 
and animal life upon their surfaces. But if all these 
Facts, when fully studied, should appear to be in- 
cluded in the general Idea of Nebular Condensation 
according to the Laws of Kature, the Facts so 
idealized would undoubtedly constitute a very remark- 
able advance in science. But then, we are to recollect 
that we are not to suppose that the Facts Avill agree 
with the Idea, merely because the Idea, considered by 
itself, and without carefully attending to the Facts, is 
a large and striking Idea. And we are also to re- 
collect that the Facts may be compared with another 
Idea, no less large and striking ; and that if we take 
into our account, (as, in forming an Idea of the Coui-se 
of the Universe, we must do,) not only vegetable and 
animal, but also human life, this other Idea appears 
likely to take into it a far larger portion of the kno^\^^ 
Facts, than the Idea of the Nebular Hypothesis. 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 305 

The otTier Idea wliicli I speak of is the Idea of Man 
as the principal Object in the Creation ; to whose 
sustenance and development the other parts . of the 
Universe are subservient as means to an end ; and 
although, in our attempts to include all known Facts 
in this Idea, we again meet with many dij6S.culties, 
and find many trains of Facts which have no apparent 
congruity with the Idea ; yet we may say that, 
taking into account the Facts of man's intellectual 
and moral condition, and his history, as well as 
the mere Facts of the material world, the diffi- 
culties and apparent incongruities are far less 
when we attempt to idealize the Facts by reference 
to this Idea, of Man as the End of Creation, than ac- 
cording to the other Idea, of the World as the 
result of Nebular Condensation, without any conceiv- 
able End or Purpose. I am now, of course, merely 
comparing these two views of the Universe, as sup- 
posed steps in science, according to the general notion 
which I have just been endeavouring to explain, that 
a step in science is some Idealization of Facts. 

7. Perhaps it will be objected, that what I have 
said of the Idealization of Facts, as the manner in 
which the progress of science goes on, amounts to 
no more than the usual expressions, that the progress 
of science consists in reducing Facts to Theories. 
And to this I reply, that the advantage at which I 
aim, by the expression which I have used, is this, to 
remind the reader, that Fact and Theory, in every 
subject, are not marked by separate and prominent 
features of difference, but only by their present 
opposition, which is a transient relation. They are 
related to each other no otherwise than as the poles 
of the fundamental antithesis : the point which 
separates those poles shifts with every advance of 
science ; and then, what was Theory becomes Fact. 
As I have already said elsewhere, a true Theory is a 
Fact; a Fact is a familiar Theory. If we bear this 
in mind, we express the view on which I am now 
insisting when we say that the progress of science 
consists in reducing Facts to Theories. But I think 



-^ 
-y 



306 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

that speaking of Ideas as opposed to Facts, we express 
more pointedly the original Antithesis, and the 
subsequent identification of the Facts with the Idea. 
The expression appears to be simple and apt, when 
we say, for instance, that the Facts of Geography are 
identified with the Idea of globular Earth ; the Facts 
of Planetary Astronomy with the Idea of the Helio- 
centric system ; and ultimately, with the Idea of Uni- 
versal Gravitation. 

8. We may further remark, that though by suc- 
cessive steps in science, successive Facts are reduced 
to Ideas, this process can never be complete. How- 
ever the point may shift which separates the two 
poles, the two poles will always remain. However 
far the ideal element may extend, there will always 
be something beyond it. However far the phenomena 
may be idealized, there will always remain some 
which are not idealized, and which are mere pheno- 
mena. This also is implied by making our expressions 
refer to the fundamental antithesis : for because the 
antithesis is fundamental, its two elements will 
always be present ; the objective as well as the 
subjective. And thus, in the contemplation of the 
universe, however much we understand, there must 
always be something which we do not understand ; 
however far we may trace necessary truths, there 
must always be things which are to our apprehension 
arbitrary : however far we may extend the sphere of 
our internal world, in which we feel power and see 
light, it must always be surrounded by our external 
world, in which we see no light, and only feel resist- 
ance. Our subjective being is inclosed in an objective 
shell, which, though it seems to yield to our efforts, 
continues entire and impenetrable beyond our reach, 
and even enlarges in its extent while it appears to 
give up to us a portion of its substance. 

II. Successive German Philosophies. 

9. The doctrine of the Fundamental Antithesis 
of two elements of which the union is involved in all 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 307 

knowledge, and of whicli tlie separation is the task of 
all philosophy, affords us a special and distinct mode 
of criticizing the philosophies which have succeeded 
each other in the world ; and we may apply it to the 
German Philosophies of which we have spoken. 

The doctrine of the Fundamental Antithesis is briefly 
this : 

That in every act of knowledge (i) there are two 
opjjosite elements which we may call Ideas and Percep- 
tions; hut of which the opi^osition appears in various 
other antitheses; as Thoughts and Things, Theories 
and Facts, Necessary Truths and Experiential Truths ; 
and the like: (2) that our knowledge derives from the 
former of these elements, namely our Ideas, its form, 
and character as knowledge, our Ideas of space and 
time being the necessary forms, for instance, of our 
geometrical and arithmetical knowledge; (3) and in 
like manner, all our otlier knowledge involving a 
development of the ideal conditions of knowledge exist- 
ing in our minds : (4) hut that though ideas and per- 
ceptions are thus separate elements in our p)hilosophy, 
they cannot, in fact, he distinguished and separated, 
hut are different aspects of the same thing; (5) that the 
only way in which we can approach to truth is hy 
gradually and successively, in one instance after 
another, advancing from the perception to the idea; 
from the fact to the theory ; from the appreliension of 
truths as actual to the apprehension of them as necessary. 
(6) This successive and various progress from fact to 
theory constitutes the history of science; (7) and this 
progress, though always leading us nearer to that 
central unity of which both the idea and the fact are 
emanations, can never lead us to that point, nor to any 
measurable proximity to it, or definite comprehension 
of its place and nature. 

10. Now the doctrine being thus stated, successive 
sentences of the statement contain successive steps of 
German philosophy, as it has appeared in the series of 
celebrated authors whom I have named. 

Ideas, and Perceptions or Sensations, being regarded 
as the two elements of our knowledge, Locke, or at 

X2 



3o8 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 







least the successors of Locke, had rejected the former 
element, Ideas, and professed to resolve all our know- 
ledge into Sensation. After this philosophy had pre- 
vailed for a time, Kant exposed, to the entire conviction 
of the great body of German speculators, the untenable 
nature of this account of our knowledge. He taught 
(one of the first sentences of the above statement) 
that (2) Our knowledge derives from our Ideas its form 
and character as knowledge ; our Ideas of space and 
time being, for instance, the necessary forms of our geo- 
metrical and arithmetical knoidedge. Fichte carried 
still further this view of our knowledge, as derived 
from our Ideas, or from its nature as knowledge ; and 
held that (3) all our knowledge is a development of the 
ideal conditions of knowledge existing in our minds 
(one of our next following sentences). But when the 
ideal element of our knowledge was thus exclusively 
dwelt upon, it was soon seen that this ideal system 
no more gave a complete explanation of the real nature 
of knowledge, than the old sensational doctrine had 
done. Both elements, Ideas and Sensations, must be 
taken into account. And this was attempted by 
Schelling, who, in his earlier works, taught (as we 
have also stated above) that (4) Ideas and Facts are 
different aspects of the same thing : — this thing, the 
central basis of truth in which both elements are in- 
volved and identified, being, in Schelling's language, 
the Absolute, while each of the separate elements is 
subjected to conditions arising from their union. But 
this Absolute, being a point' inaccessible to us, and 
inconceivable by us, as our philosophy teaches (as 
above), cannot to any purpose be made the basis of 
our philosophy : and accordingly this Philosophy of 
the Absolute has not been more permanent than its 
predecessors. Yet the philosophy of Hegel, which 
still has a wide and powerful sway in Germany, is, 
in the main, a development of the same principle as 
that of Schelling; — the identity of the idea and the 
fact; and Hegel's Identity-System, is rather a more 
methodical and technical exposition of Schelling's 
Philosophy of the Absolute than a new system. But 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 309 

Hegel traces tlie manifestation of the identity of tlie 
idea and fact in the 2^'^ogress of human knowledge j 
and thus in some measure approaches to our doctrine 
(above stated), that (5) the loay in which we approach 
to truth is by gradually and successively, in one instance 
after another, that is, historically, advancing from the 
joerception to the idea, from the fact to the theory : while 
at the same time Hegel has not carried out this view 
in any comprehensive or complete manner, so as to 
show that (6) this process constitutes the history of 
science : and as with Schelling, his system shows an 
entire want of the conviction (above exjjressed as 
part of our doctrine), (7) that we can never, in our 
speculations reach or approach to the central unity 
of which both idea and fact are emanations. 

Ti. This view of the relation of the Sensational 
School, of the Schools of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and 
Hegel, and of the fundamental defects of all, may be 
further illustrated. It will, of course, be understood 
that our illustration is given only as a slight and im- 
perfect sketch of these philosophies j but their relation 
may perhaps become more apparent by the very brevity 
with which it is stated; and the object of the present 
chapter is not the detailed criticism of systems, but 
this very relation of systems to each other. 

The actual and the ideal, the external and the in- 
ternal elements of knowledge, were called by the 
Germans the objective and the subjective elements re- 
spectively. The forms of knowledge and especially 
space and time, were pronounced by Kant to be 
essentially subjective ; and this view of the nature 
of knowledge, more fully unfolded and extended to 
all knowledge, became the subjective ideality of Fichte. 
But the subjective and the objective are, as we 
have said, in their ultimate and supreme form, one ; 
and hence we are told of the subjective-objective, a 
phrase which has also been employed by Mr. 
Coleridge. Fichte had spoken of the subjective ele- 
ment as the J/fi, (das Ich); and of the objective 
element as the Not-me, (das Nicht-Ich) ; and has 
deduced the Not-me from the Me. Schelling, on the 



310 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

contrary, laboured with great subtlety to deduce 
the Me from the Absolute which includes both. And 
this Absolute, or Subjective-objective, is spoken of by 
Schelling as unfolding itself into endless other anti- 
theses. It was held that from the assumption of such 
a principle might be deduced and explained the oppo- 
sitions which, in the contemplation of nature, present 
, themselves at every step, as leading points of general 

Jli i I philosophy : — for example, the opposition of matter as 

ifl^ i passive and active, as dead and organized, as uncon- 

N scious or cmiscious; the opposition of individual and 

' species, of will and moral rule. And this antithetical 

development was carried further by Hegel, who taught 
that the Absolute Idea developes itself so as to assume 
qualities, limitations, and seeming oppositions, and 
I then completes the cycle of its development by return- 

■ ing into unity. 

12. That there is, in the history of Science, much 
which easily lends itself to such a formula, the views 
\ which I have endeavoured to expound, show and ex- 

emplify in detail. But yet the attempts to carry this 
\\ 1_ view into detail by conjecture — by a sort of divination 

— ^with little or no attention to the historical progress 
and actual condition of knowledge, (and such are those 
which have been made by the philosophers whom I 
have mentioned,) have led to arbitrary and baseless 
views of almost every branch of knowledge. Such 
oppositions and differences as are found to exist in 
nature, are assumed as the representatives of the 
elements of necessary antitheses, in a manner in which 
scientific truth and inductive reasoning are altogether 
slighted. Thus, this peculiar and necessary anti- 
thetical character is assumed to be displayed in 
^^ attraction and repulsion, in centripetal and centrifugal 

^Hlt forces, in a supposed positive and negative electricity, 

^^■l^^n. I in a supposed positive and negative magnetism ; in 

^^^^^HHI' 1 still more doubtful positive and negative elements of 

^^^^^^^^ light and heat ; in the diff'erent elements of the atmo- 

|Hi sphere, which are, quite groundlessly, assumed to have a 

^y . . peculiar antithetical character : in animal and veget- 

' i able life ; in the two sexes : in gravity and light. 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 3II 

These and many others, are given by Schelling, as 
instances of the radical opposition of forces and ele- 
ments which necessarily pervades all nature. I con- 
ceive that the heterogeneous and erroneous principles 
involved in these views of the material world show us 
how unsafe and misleading is the philosophical as- 
sumption on which they rest. And the Triads of 
Hegel, consisting of Thesis, Antithesis, and Union, are 
still more at variance with all sound science. Thus 
we are told that matter and motion are determined as 
inertia, impulsion, fall ; that Absolute Mechanics de- 
termines itself as centripetal force, centrifugal force, 
universal gravitation. Light, it is taught, is a secon- 
dary determination of matter. Light is the most 
intimate element of nature, and might be called the 
Me of nature : it is limited by what we may call 
negative light, which is darkness. 

13. In these rash and blind attempts to construct 
physical science a priori, we may see how imperfect 
the Hegelian doctrines are as a complete philosophy. 
In the views of moral and political subjects the results 
of such a scheme are naturally less obviously absurd, 
and may often be for a moment striking and attrac- 
tive, as is usually the case with attempts to reduce 
history to a formula. Thus we are told that the 
State appears under the following determinations : — first 
as one, substantial, self-included: next, varied, indivi- 
dual, active, disengaging itself from the substantial and 
motionless unity : next, as two principles, altogether 
distinct, and placed front to front in a marked and 
active opposition : then, arising out of the ruins of the 
preceding, the idea appears afresh, one, identical, 
harmonious. And the East, Greece, Home, Germany, 
are declared to be the historical forms of these succes- 
sive determinations. Whatever amount of real his- 
torical colour there may be for this representation, it 
will hardly, I think, be accepted as evidence of a pro- 
found political philosophy ; but on such parts of the 
subject I shall not here dwell. 

14. I may observe that in the series of philosophi- 
cal systems now described, the two elements of the 



312 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

Fundamental Antithesis are alternately dwelt upon 
in an exaggerated degree, and then confounded. The 
Sensational School could- see in human knowledge 
nothing but facts : Kant and Fichte fixed their atten- 
tion almost entirely upon ideas : Schelling and Hegel 
assume the identity of the two, (a point we never can 
reach,) as the origin of their philosophy. The exter- 
nal world in Locke's school was all in all. In the 
( ; speculations of Kant this external world became a dim 

t I and unknown region. Things were acknowledged to 

be something in themselves, but what, the philosopher 
could not tell. Besides the phcenomenon which we 
see, Kant acknowledged a noumenon which we think 
of; but this assumption, for such it is, exercises no 
influence upon his philosophy. 

15. We may for the sake of illustration imagine to 
ourselves each system of philosophy as a Drama in 
which Things are the Dramatis Fersonce and the Idea 
which governs the system is the Flot of the drama. 
In Kant's Drama, Things in themselves are merely a 
kind of 'Mute Personages,' Kco^a Trpoo-wTra, which stand 
on the stage to be pointed at and talked about, but 
I which do not tell us anything, or enter into the action 

1 of the piece. Fichte carries this further, and if we go 

/ on with the same illustration, we may say that he makes 

the whole drama into a kind of Monologue ; in which 
the author tells the story, and merely names the 
persons who appear. If we would still carry on the 
image, we may say that Schelling, going upon the prin- 
ciple that the whole of the drama is merely a progress 
to the Denouement, which denouement contains the 
result of all the preceding scenes and events, starts 
with the last scene of the piece; and bringing all the 
characters on the stage in their final attitudes, would 
elicit the story from this. While the true mode of 
proceeding is, to follow the drama Scene by Scene, 
learning as much as we can of the Action and the 
< Characters, but knowing that we shall not be allowed 

to see the Denouement, and that to do so is probably 

not the lot of our species on earth. So far as any 

' i philosopher has thus followed the historical progress of 



lb 



MODERN GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 313 

the grand spectacle offered to the eyes of speculative 
man, in wliich the Phenomena of Nature are the 
Scenes, and the Theory of them the Plot, he has taken 
the course by which knowledge really has made its ad- 
vances. But those who have partially done this, have 
often, like Hegel, assumed that they had divined the 
whole course and end of the story, and have thus 
criticised the scenes and the characters in a spirit 
quite at variance with that by which any real insight 
into the import of the representation can be obtained. 

If it be asked which position we can assign, in this 
dramatic illustration, to those who hold that all our 
knowledge is derived from facts only, and who reject 
the suj)position of ideas ; we may say that they look 
on with a belief that the drama has no plot, and that 
these scenes are imjDrovised without connexion or pur- 
pose. 

16. I will only offer one more illustration of the 
relative position of these successive philosophies. Kant 
compares the change which he introduced into philoso- 
phy to the change which Copernicus introduced into 
astronomical theory. When Copernicus found that 
nothing could be made of the phenomena of the hea- 
vens so long as everything was made to turn round 
the spectator, he tried whether the matter might not 
be better explained if he made the spectator turn, and 
left the stars at rest. So Kant conceives that our 
experience is regulated by our own faculties, as the 
phenomena of the heavens are regulated by our own 
motions. But accepting and carrying out this illus- 
tration, we may say that Kant, in explaining the phe- 
nomena of the heavens by means of the motions of the 
eai-th, has almost forgotten that the planets have their 
own proper motions, and has given us a system which 
hardly explains anything besides broadest appearances, 
such as the annual and daily motions of the sun; and 
that Pichte appears as if he wished to deduce all the 
motions of the planets, as well as of the sun, from the 
conditions of the spectator; — while Schelling goes to 
the origin of the system, like Descartes, and is not 
content to show how the bodies move, without also 



1 


I 

i 



T 



314 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

proving that from some assumed original condition, 
all the movements and relations of the system must 
necessarily be what they are. It may be that a theory 
"which explains how the planets, with their orbits and 
accompaniments, have come into being, may offer itself 
to bold speculators, like those who have framed and 
produced the nebular hypothesis. But I need not 
remind my readers either how precarious such a 
hypothesis is; or, that if it be capable of being con- 
sidered probable, its proofs must gradually dawn upon 
us, step by step, age after age : and that a system of 
doctrine which assumes such a scheme as a certain 
and fundamental truth, and deduces the whole of 
astronomy from it, must needs be arbitrary, and liable 
to the gravest error at every step. Such a precarious 
and premature philosophy, at best, is that of ScheUing 
and Hegel ; especially as applied to those sciences in 
which, by the past progress of all sure knowledge, we 
are taught what the real cause and progress of know- 
ledge is : while at the same time we may allow that all 
these forms of philosophy, since they do recognize the 
condition and motion of the spectator, as a necessary 
element in the explanation of the phenomena, are a 
large advance upon the Ptolemaic scheme — the view of 
those who appeal to phenomena alone as the source of 
our knowledge, and say that the sun, the moon, and the 
planets move as we see them move, and that all further 
theory is imaginary and fantastical. 



CHAPTEE XXY. 

The Fundamental Antithesis as it exists in the 
moeal wokld. 



I* TTTE have Mtlierto spoken of the Fundamental 
V M Antithesis as the ground of our speculations 
concerning the material world, at least mainly. We 
have indeed been led by the physical sciences, and es- 
pecially by Biology, to^the borders of Psychology. We 
have had to consider not only the mechanical effects of 
muscular contraction, but the sensations which the 
nerves receive and convey : — the way in which sensa- 
tions become perceptions ; the way in which perceptions 
determine actions. In this manner we have been led 
to the subject of volition or will\ and this brings us 
to a new field of speculation, the moral nature of man ; 
and this moral nature is a matter not only of specula- 
tive but of practical interest. On this subject I shall 
make only a few brief remarks. 

2. Even in the most purely speculative view, the 
moral aspect of man's nature differs from the aspect of 
the material universe, in this respect, that in the 
moral world, external events are governed in some 
measure by the human will. When we speculate 
concerning the laws of material nature, we suppose 
that the phenomena of nature follow a course and 
order which we may perhaps, in some measure, dis- 
cover and understand, but which we cannot change 
or control. But when we consider man as an agent, 
we suppose him able to determine some at least of 
the events of the external world; and thus, able to 
determine the actions of other men, and to lay down 



1 Phil, of Biol, c V. 



3t6 philosophy of discovery. 

laws for them. He cannot alter tlie properties of 
fire and metals, stones and fluids, air and light ; but he 
can use fire and steel so as to compel other men's actions ; 
stone-walls and ocean-shores so as to control other 
men's motions ; gold and gems so as to have a hold on 
other men's desires; articulate sounds and intelligible 
symbols so as to direct other men's thoughts and move 

# their will. There is an external world of Facts ; and 

/ I ' in this, the Facts are such as he makes them by his 

^ ' Acts. 

'j 3. But besides this, there is also, standing over 

against this external world of Facts, an internal world 
of Ideas. The Moral Acts without are the results of 
Moral Ideas within. Men have an Idea of Justice, for 
instance, according to which they are led to external 
acts, as to use force, to make a promise, to perform a 
contract, as individuals ; or to make war and peace, to 
enact laws and to execute them, as a nation. 

4. Some such internal moral Idea necessarily ex- 
ists, along with all properly human actions. Man feels 
not only pain and anger, but indignation and the senti- 

\i,^J-^ '.! ment of wrong, which feelings imply a moral idea of 

right and wrong. Again, what he thinks of as wrong, 
he tries to prevent ; what he deems right, he attempts 
to realize. The Idea gives a character to the Actj 
the Act embodies the Idea. In the moral world as in 
the natural world, the Antithesis is universal and in- 
separable. It is an Antithesis of inseparable elements. 
In human action, there is ever involved the Idea of 
what is right, and the external Act in which this idea 
is in some measure embodied. 

5. But the moral Ideas, such as that of Justice, 
of Bightness, and the like, are always embodied in- 
completely in the world of external action. Although 
men's actions are to a great extent governed by the 
Ideas of Justice, Bightness and the like; (for it must 
be recollected that we include in their actions, laws, 
and the enforcement of laws;) yet there is a large 
portion of human actions which is not governed by such 
ideas : (actions which result from mere desire, and 
violations of law). There is a perpetual Antithesis of 



THE ANTITHESIS IN MORALS. 317 

Ideas and Facts, which is the fundamental basis of 
moral as of natural philosophy. In the former as in 
the latter subject, besides what is ideal, there is an 
Actual which the ideal does not include. This Actual 
is the region in which the results of mere desire, of 
caprice, of apparent accident, are found. It is the 
region of history, as opposed to justice; it is the 
region of what is, as distinct from what ought to be. 

6. Now what I especially wish here to remark, is 
this ; — that the progress of man as a moral being con- 
sists in a constant extension of the Idea into the region 
of Facts. This progress consists in making human 
actions conform more and more to the moral Ideas of 
Justice, Kightness, and the like; including in human 
actions, as we have said. Laws, the enforcement of 
Laws, and other collective acts of bodies of men. The 
History of Man as Man consists in this extension of 
moral Ideas into the region of Facts. It is not that 
the actual history of what men do has always consisted 
in such an extension of moral Ideas; for there has 
ever been, in the actual doings of men, a large portion 
of facts which had no moral character; acts of desire, 
deeds of violence, transgressions of acknowledged law, 
and the like. But such events are not a part of the 
genuine progi-ess of humanity. They do not belong to 
the history of man as man, but to the history of man 
as brute. On the other hand, there are events which 
belong to the history of man as man, events which 
belong to the genuine progress of humanity; such as 
the establishment of just laws ; their enforcement ; 
their improvement by introducing into them a fuller 
measure of moral Ideas. By such means there is a 
constant progress of man as a moral being. By this 
realization of moral Ideas there is a constant progress 
of Humanity. 

7. I have made this reflection, because it appears 
to me to bring into view an analogy between the Pro- 
gress of Science and the Progress of Man, or of Hu- 
manity, in the sense in which I have used the term. 
In both these lines of Progress, Facts are more and 
more identified with Ideas. In both, there is a funda- 



3l8 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

mental Antithesis of Ideas and Facts, and progress 
consists in a constant advance of the point which 
separates the two elements of this Antithesis. In 
both, Facts are constantly won over to the domain of 
Ideas. But still, there is a difference in the two cases ; 
for in the one case the Facts are beyond our control. 
We cannot make them other than they are ; and a]l 
that we can do, if we can do that, is to shape our Ideas 
so that they shall coincide with the Facts, and still 
have the manifest connexion which belongs to them as 
Ideas. In the other case, the Facts are, to a certain 
extent, in our power. They are what we make them, 
for they are what we do. In this case, the Facts ought 
to come towards the Ideas, rather than the Ideas 
towards the Facts. As we called the former process 
the Idealization of Facts, we may call this the Realiza- 
tion of Ideas ; and the analogy which I have here 
wished to bring into view may be expressed by saying, 
that the Progress of Physical Science consists in a 
constant successive Idealization of Physical Facts ; and 
the Progress of man's Moral Being is a constant suc- 
cessive Bealization of Moral Ideas. 

8. Thus the necessary co-existence of an objective 
and a subjective element belongs not only to human 
knowledge, as was before explained, but also to human 
action. The objective and the subjective element are 
inseparable in this case as in the other. We have al- 
ways the Fact of Positive Law, along with the Idea of 
Absolute Justice; the Facts of Gain or Loss, along 
with the Idea of Bights. The Idea of Justice is in- 
separable from historical facts, for justice gives to each 
his own, and history determines what that is. We 
cannot even conceive justice without society, or society 
without law, and thus in the moral and in the natural 
world the fundamental antithesis is inseparable, even, 
in thought. The two elements must always subsist ; for 
however far the moral ideas be realized in the world, 
there will always remain much in the world which is 
not conformable to moral ideas, even if it were only 
through its necessary dependence on an unmoral and 
immoral past. As in the physical world so in the 



THE ANTITHESIS IN MORALS. 319 

moral, however much the ideal sphere expands, it is 
surrounded by a region which is not conformable to 
the idea, although in one case the expansion takes 
place by educing ideas out of facts, in the other, by 
producing facts from ideas. 

I shall hereafter venture to pursue further this 
train of speculation, but at present I shall make some 
remarks on writers who may be regarded as the suc- 
cessors amongst ourselves of these German schools of 
Philosophy. 



™fl 



i 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Of the '-Philosophy of the Infinite." 



IN the last Chapter but one I stated that Schelling 
propounded a Philosophy of the Absolute, the Abso- 
lute being the original basis of truth in which the two 
opposite elements, Ideas and Facts, are identified, and 
that Hegel also founded his philosoj)hy on the Identity 
of these two elements. These German philosophies 
appear to me, as I have ventured to intimate, of small 
or no value in their bearing on the history of actual 
science. I have in the history of the sciences noted 
instances in which these writers seem to me to miscon- 
ceive altogether the nature and meaning of the facts of 
scientific history; as where ^ Schelling condemns New- 
ton's Opticks as a fabric of fallacies : and where" Hegel 
says that the glory due to Kepler has been unjustly 
transferred to Newton. As it appears to me important 
that English philosophers should form a just estimate 
of Hegel's capacity of judging and pronouncing on this 
subject, I will print in tlie Appendix a special discus- 
sion of what he has said respecting Newton's dis- 
covery of the law of gravitation. 

Recently attempts have been made to explain to 
English readers these systems of German philosophy, 
and in these attempts there are some points which may 
deserve our notice as to their bearing on the philosophy 
of science. I find some difficulty in discussing these 
attempts, for they deal much with phrases which ap- 
pear to me to ofier no grasp to man's power of reason. 
What, for instance, is the Absolute, which occupies a 



1 Hist Ind, Sc. b. ix. c. iii. 2 Ibid. b. vii. c ii. 



PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. 32 1 

prominent place in these expositions ? It is, as I have 
stated, in Sclielling, the central basis of truth in which 
things and thoughts are united and identified. To at- 
tempt to reason about such an "Absolute" appears to 
me to be an entire misapprehension of the power of rea- 
son. Again ; one of the most eminent of the expositors 
has spoken of each system of this kind as a Philoso'phy 
of the Unconditioned^, But what, we must ask, is the 
Unconditioned ? That which is subject to no con- 
ditions, is subject to no conditions which distinguish it 
from any thing else, and so, cannot be a matter of 
thought. But again j this Absolute or Unconditioned is 
(if I rightly understand) said to be described also by 
various other names ; unity, identity, substance, absolute 
cause, the infinite, pure thought, &c. As each of these 
terms expresses some condition on which the name fixes 
our thoughts, I cannot understand why they should any 
of them be called the Unconditioned ; and as they ex- 
press very different thoughts, I cannot understand why 
they should be called by the same name. From specu- 
lations starting from such a point, I can expect nothing 
but confusion and perplexity ; nor can I find that any- 
thing else has come of them. They appear to me more 
barren, and more certain to be barren, of any results 
which have any place in our real knowledge, than the 
most barren speculations of the schoolmen of the mid- 
dle ages : which indeed they much resemble in all their 
features — their acuteness, their learning, their ambi- 
tious aim, and their actual failure. 

2. But lea\dng the Absolute and the Uncondition- 
ed, as notions which cannot be dealt with by our reason 
without being something entirely different from their 
definitions, we may turn for a moment to another no- 
tion which is combined with them by the expositors of 
whom I speak, and which has some bearing upon our 
positive science, because it enters into the reasonings of 
mathematics : I mean the notion of Infinite. Some of 
those who hold that we can know nothing concerning 



s Sir W, Hamilton's Note on the Philosophy of tJie Unconditioned. 

Y 



322 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 



I 



1!^^ 



i 



the Absolute and the Unconditioned, (which they 
pretend to prove, though concerning such words I do 
not conceive that anything can be true or false,) hold 
also that the Infinite is in the same condition; — that 
we can know nothing concerning what is Infinite;- — 
therefore, I presume, nothing concerning infinite space, 
infinite time, infinite number, or infinite degrees. 

To disprove this doctrine, it might be sufficient to 
point out that there is a vast mass of mathematical 
science which includes the notion of infinites, and 
leads to a great body of propositions concerning Infi- 
nites. The whole of the infitesimal calculus depends 
upon conceiving finite magnitudes divided into an in- 
finite number of parts : these parts are infinitely small, 
and of these parts there are other infinitesimal parts 
infinitely smaller still, and so on, as far as we please 
to go. And even those methods which shun the term 
infinite, as Newton's method of Ultimate Katios, the 
method of Indivisibles, and the method of Exhaustions 
of the ancient geometers, do really involve the notion 
of infinite ; for they imply a process continued without 
limit. 

3. But perhaps it will be more useful to point out 
the fallacies of the pretended proofs that we can know 
nothing concerning Infinity and infinite things. 

The argument ofiered is, that of infinity we have no 
notion but the negation of a limit, and that from this 
negative notion no positive result can be deduced. 

But to this I reply: It is not at all true that our 
notion of what is infinite is merely that it is that which 
has no limit. We must ask further that what? that 
space? that time? that number 1 — And if that space, 
that what kind of space? That line? that surface? 
that solid space ? — And if that line, that line bounded 
at one end, or not? If that surface, that surface 
bounded on one, or on two, or on three sides ? or on 
none? However any of these questions are answered, 
we may still have an infinite space. Till they are 
answered, we can assert nothing about the space; not 
because we can assert nothing about infinites; but 
because we are not told what kind of infinite we are 
talking of. 



PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. 323 

In reality the definition of an Infinite Quantity is 
not negative merely, but contains a positive part as 
welL We assume a quantity of a certain kind wMch 
may be augmented by carrying onward its limits in 
one or more directions: this is a finite quantity of a 
given kind. We then — when we have thus positively 
determined the kind of the quantity — suppose the 
limit in one or more directions to be annihilated, and 
thus we have an infinite quantity. But in this infinite 
quantity there remain the positive properties from 
which we began, as well as the negative property, 
the negation of a limit; and the positive properties 
joined with the negative property may and do supply 
grounds of reasoning respecting the infinite quantity. 

4. This is lore so elementary to mathematicians 
that it appears almost puerile to dwell upon it ; but this 
seems to have been overlooked, in the proof that we can 
have no knowledge concerning infinites. In such proof 
it is assumed as quite evident, that all infinites are 
equal. Yet, as we have seen, infinites may difier infi- 
nitely among themselves, both in quantity and in kind. 
A German writer is quoted^ for an "ingenious" proof 
of this kind. In his writings, the opponent is supposed 
to urge that a line BAG may be made infinite by 
carrying the extremity C infinitely to the right, and 
again infinite by carrying the extremity B infinitely to 
the left; and thus the line infiLuitely extended both 
ways would be double of the line infinite on one side 
only. The supposed reply to this is. that it cannot be 
so, because one infinite is equal to another : and more- 
over that what is bounded at one end A, cannot be 
infinite : both which assumptions are without the 
smallest ground. That one infinite quantity may be 
double of another, is just as clear and certain as that 
one finite quantity may. For instance, if one leaf of 
the book which the reader has before him were pro- 
duced infinitely upwards it would be an infinite space, 
though bounded at the bottom and at both sides. If 



* Werenfels in Mr. Mansel's Bampton Lectures, lect. ii. Note 15. 

T 2 



I 



324 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

the otlier leaf were in like manner produced infinitely 
upwards it would in like manner be infinite; and the 
two together, though each infinite, would be double of 
either of them. 

5. As I have said, infinite quantities are conceived 
by conceiving finite quantities increased by the transfer 
of a certain limit, and then by negativing this limit 
altogether. And thus an infinite number is conceiv- 
ed by assuming the series i, 2, 3, 4, and so on, up 
to a limit, and then removing this limit altogether. 
And this shows the baselessness of another argument 
quoted from Werenfele. The opponent asks, Are there 
in the infinite line an infinite number of feet? Then 
in the double line there must be twice as many; and 
thus the former infinite number did not contain all the 
(possible) unities ; (numerus infinitus non omnes habet 
unitates, sed prseter eum concipi possunt totidem uni- 
tates, quibus ille careat, eique possunt addi). To which 
I reply, that the definition of an infinite number is not 
that it contains all possible unities : but this — that 
the progress of numeration being begun according to 
a certain law, goes on without limit. And accordingly 
it is easy to conceive how one infinite number may be 
larger than another infinite number, in any proportion. 
If, for instance, we take, instead of the progression of 
the natural numbers i, 2, 3, 4, &c. and the progression of 
the square numbers 1, 4, 9, 16, &c. any term of the 
latter series will be greater than the corresponding term 
of the other series in a ratio constantly increasing, and 
the infinite term of the one, infinitely greater than the . 
corresponding infinite term of the other. 

6. In the same manner we form a conception of in- 
finite time, by supposing time to begin now, and to go 
on, after the nature of time, without limit ; or by going 
back in thought from the present to a past time, and 
by continuing this retrogression without limit. And 
thus we have time infinite a parte ante and a parte 
jjost, as the phrase vised to run; and time infinite both 
ways includes both, and is the most complete notion of 
eternity. 

7. Perhaps those who thus maintain that we cannot 



PHILOSOPHY OF THE INFINITE. 325 

conceive anything infinite, mean that we cannot form 
to ourselves a definite image of anything infinite. And 
this of course is true. We cannot form to ourselves an 
image of anything of which one of the characteristics 
is that it is, in a certain way, unlimited. But this im- 
possibility does not prevent our reasoning about infinite 
quantities ; combining as elements of our reasoning, the 
absence of a limit with other positive characters. 

8. One of the consequences which is drawn by the 
assertors of the doctrine that we cannot know any- 
thing about Infinity, is that we cannot obtain from 
science any knowledge concerning God : And I have 
been the more desirous to show the absence of proof of 
this doctrine, because I conceive that science does give 
us some knowledge, though it be very little, of the 
nature of God : as I shall endeavour to show here- 
after. 

For instance, I conceive that when we say that God 
is an eternal Being, this phraseology is not empty 
and unmeaning. It has been used by the wisest and 
most thoughtful men in all ages, and, as I conceive, 
may be used with undiminished, or with increased 
propriety, after all the light which science and phi- 
losophy have thrown upon such declarations. The 
reader of Newton will recollect how emphatically he 
uses this expression along with others of a cognate 
character^: "God is eternal and infinite,... that is. He 
endures from eternity to eternity, and is present from 
infinity to infinity... He is not eternity and infinity, 
but eternal and infinite. He is not duration and space, 
but He endures and is present. He endures always, 
and is present everywhere, and by existing always and 
everywhere He constitutes duration and space." We 
shall see shortly that the view to which we are led may 
be very fitly expressed by this language. 

But I will first notice some other aspects of this 
philosophy. 



5 Scholium Generdle at the end of the Principia. 



CHAPTER XXYII. 
Sir William Hamilton on Inertia and "Weight. 



IIsT a preceding chapter I have spoken of Sir William 
Hamilton as the expositor, to English readers, of 
modern German systems, and especially of the so-called 
^'Philosophy of the Unconditioned." But the same 
writer is also noticeable as a continuator of the specu- 
lations of EngKsh and Scottish philosophers concerning 
primary and secondary qualities; and these specula- 
tions bear so far upon the philosophy of science that it 
is proper to notice them here. 

1. In our survey of the sciences, we have spoken of 
a class which we have termed the Secondary Mechani- 
cal Sciences; these being the sciences which explain 
certain sensible phenomena, as sound, light, and heat, 
by means of a medium interposed between external 
bodies and our organs of sense. In these cases, we 
ascribe to bodies certain qualities : we call them reso- 
nant, bright, red or green, hot or cold. But in the 
sciences which relate to these subjects, we explain these 
qualities by the figure, size and motions of the parts 
of the medium which intervenes between the object 
and the ear, eye, or other sensible organ. And those 
former qualities, sound, warmth and colour, are called 
secondary qualities of the bodies; while the latter, 
figure, size and motion, are called the primary quali- 
ties of body. 

2. This distinction, in its substance, is of great an- 
tiquity. The atomic theory which was set up at an 
early period of Greek philosophy was an attempt to 
account for the secondary qualities of bodies by means 
of their primary qualities. And this is really the 
scientific ground of the distinction. Those are primary 



HAMILTON ON SECONDARY QUALITIES. 327 

qualities or attributes of body by means of which we, 
in a scientific view, explain and derive their other 
qualities. But the explanation of the sensible quali- 
ties of bodies bj means of their operation through a 
mediiun has till now been very defective, and is so 
still. We have to a certain extent theories of Sound, 
Light and Heat, which reduce these qualities to scales 
and standards, and in some measure account mechani- 
cally for their differences and gradations. But we have 
as yet no similar theory of Smells and Tastes. Still, 
we do not doubt that fragrance and flavour are per- 
ceived by means of an aerial medium in which odours 
float, and a fluid medium in which sapid matters are 
dissolved. And the special odour and flavour which 
are thus perceived must depend upon the size, figure, 
motion, number, &c. of the particles thus conveyed to 
the organs of taste and smell : that is, those secondary 
qualities, as well as the others, must depend upon the 
primary qualities of the parts of the medium. 

3. In this way the distinction of primary and second- 
ary qualities is definite and precise. But when men 
attempt to draw the distinction by guess, without any 
scientific principle, the separation of the two classes is 
vague and various. I have, in the History of Scientific 
Ideas^, pointed out some of the variations which are 
to be found on this subject in the writings of philo- 
sophers. Sir William Hamilton^ has given an account 
of many more which he has compared and analysed 
with great acuteness. He has shown how this distinc- 
tion is treated, among others, by the ancient atomists, 
Leucippus and Democritus, by Aristotle, Galen, Ga- 
lileo, Descartes, Boyle, Malebranche, Locke, Beid, 
Stewart, Boyer-CoUard. He then proceeds to give 
his own view; which is, that we may most properly 
divide the qualities of bodies into three classes, which 
he calls Primary , Secundo-primary, and Secondary. 
The former he enumerates as i, Extension; 2, Divisi- 
bility; 3, Si2e; 4, Density or Barity; 5, Figure; 



1 B. iv. c. L 
' Eeid's Works, Supplementary Dissertation D. 



< 



328 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

6, Incompressibility absolute; 7, Mobility; 8, Situa- 
tion. The Secundo-primary are Gravity, Cohesion, 
Inertia, E-epuIsion, The Secondary are those com- 
monly so called, Colour, Sound, Flavour, Savour, and 
Tactical Sensation; to which he says may be added 
the muscular and cutaneous sensation which accom- 
pany the perception of the Secundo-primary qualities. 
" Such, though less directly the result of foreign 
causes, are Titillation, Sneezing, Horripilation, Shud- 
dering, the feeling of what is called Setting-the-teeth- 
on-edge, &c." 

The Secundo-primary qualities Sir William Hamil- 
ton traces in further detail. He explains that with 
reference to Gravity, bodies are heavy or light. With 
reference to Cohesion, there are many coordinate pairs, 
of which he enumerates these : — hard and soft; firm 
and Jluidf — the fluid being subdivided into thick and 
thin; viscid and friable; tough snnd brittle ; rigid and 
flexible ; fissile and infissile; ductile and inductile; retrac- 
tile and irretractile ; rough and smooth; slippery and 
tenacious. With reference to Kepulsion he gives these 
qualities : — compressible and incompressible; elastic and 
inelastic. And with reference to Inertia he mentions 
only moveable and immoveable. 

I do not see what advantage is gained to philosophy 
by such an enumeration of qualities as this, which, 
after all, does not pretend to completeness; nor do I 
see anything either precise or fundamental in such 
distinctions as that of elasticity, a mode of cohesion, 
and elasticity, a mode of repulsion. But a question in 
which our philosophy is really concerned is how far 
any of these qualities are universal qualities of matter. 
Sir W. Hamilton holds that they are none of them 
necessary qualities of matter, and therefore of course 
not universal, and argues this point at some length. 
With regard to one of his Secundo-primary qualities, 
I will make some remarks. 

4. Inertia. — In discussing the Ideas which enter in- 
to the Mechanical Sciences^, I have stated that the Idea 



8 HUt. Sc. Id. b. iii. 



HAMILTON ON INERTIA. 329 

of Force and Resistance to Force, that is, of Force and 
Matter^ are the necessary foundations of those sciences. 
Force cannot act without matter to act on; Matter 
cannot exist without Force to keep its parts together 
and to keep it in its place. But Force acting upon 
matter may either be Force producing rest, or Force 
producing motion. If we consider Force producing 
motion, the motion produced, that is, the velocity 
produced, must depend upon the quantity of matter 
moved. It cannot be that the same power, acting in 
the same way, shall produce the same velocity by 
pushing a small pebble and a large rock. If this were 
so, we could have no science on such matters. It 
must needs be that the same force produces a smaller 
velocity in the larger body; and this according to 
some measure of its largeness. The measure of the 
degree in which the body thus resists this communica- 
tion of motion is inertia. And the inertia is neces- 
sarily supposed to be proportional to the quantity of 
matter, because it is by this inertia that this existence 
and quantity of the matter is measured. If therefore 
any Science concerning Force and Matter is to exist, 
matter must have inertia, and the inertia must be 
proportional to the quantity of matter. 

5. Sir W. Hamilton, in opposition to this, says, 
that we can conceive a body occupying space, and yet 
without attraction or repulsion for another body, and 
wholly indifferent to this or that position, in space, 
to motion and to rest. He infers thence that inertia 
is not a necessary quality of bodies. 

To this I reply, that even if we can conceive such 
bodies, (which in fact man, living in a world of matter 
cannot conceive,) at any rate we cannot conceive any 
science about such bodies. If bodies were indifferent 
to motion and rest, Forces could not be measured by 
their effects ; nor could be measured or known in any 
way. Such bodies might float about like clouds, visi- 
ble to the eye, but intangible, and governed by no laws 
of motion. But if we have any science about bodies, 
they must be tangible, and governed by laws of mo- 
tion. Not, theu, from any observed properties of 



M 



'ftt 



I 



i 



330 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

bodies, but from the possibility of any science about 
bodies, does it follow that all bodies have inertia. 

6. Gravity.- — Reasoning of the same kind may be 
employed about weight. We can conceive, it is urged^ 
matter without weight. But I reply, we cannot con* 
ceive a science which deals with matter that has no 
weight :— a science, I mean, which deals with the quan^ 
tity of matter of bodies, as arising from the sum of their 
elements. For the quantity of matter of bodies is and 
must be measured by those sensible properties of mat- 
ter which undergo quantitative addition, subtraction 
and division, as the matter is added, subtracted, and 
divided. The quantity of matter cannot be known 
in any other way. But this mode of measuring the 
quantity of matter, in order to be true at all, must be 
universally true. If it were only partially true— if 
some kinds of matter had weight and others had not— *- 
the limits of the mode of measuring matter by weight 
would be arbitrary : and therefore the whole procedure 
would be arbitrary, and as a mode of obtaining philo- 
sophical truth, altogether futile. But we suppose 
truth respecting the composition of bodies to be at- 
tainable; therefore we must suppose the rule, which is 
the necessary basis of such truth, to be itself true. 

Sir W. Hamilton has replied to these arguments, 
but, as I conceive, without affecting the force of them. 
I will repeat here the answer which I have already 
given*, and will reprint in the Appendix the Memoir 
by which his objections were occasioned. 

He says, (i), that our reasoning assumes that we 
must necessarily have it in our power to ascertain the 
Quantity of Matter; whereas this may be a problem 
out of the reach of human determination. 

To this I reply, that my reasoning does assume that 
there is a science, or sciences, which make assertions 
concerning the Quantity of Matter : Mechanics and 
Chemistry are such sciences. My assertion is, that t6 
make such sciences possible. Quantity of Matter must 



* Hist. Sc. Id. b. vL c. iii. 



HAMILTON ON WEIGHT. 33 1 

be proportional to Weight. If my opponent deny that 
Mechanics and Chemistry can exist as science, he may 
invalidate my proof; but not otherwise. 

(2) He says that there are two conceivable ways of 
estimating the Quantity of Matter : by the Space occu- 
pied, and by the Weight or Inertia; and that I assume 
the second measure gratuitously. 

To which I reply, that the most elementary steps in 
Mechanics and in Chemistry contradict the notion that 
the Quantity of Matter is proportionate to the Space. 
They proceed necessarily on a distinction between 
Space and Matter : — between mere Extension and ma- 
terial Substance. 

(3) He allows that we cannot make the Extension of 
a body the measui'e of the Quantity of Matter, because, 
he says, we do not know if " the compressing force " is 
such as to produce " the closest compression." That is, 
he assumes a compressing force, assumes a "closest com* 
pression," assumes a peculiar (and very improbable) 
atomic hypothesis ; and all this, to supply a reason why 
we are not to believe the first simple principle of 
Mechanics and Chemistry. 

(4) He speaks of " a series of apparent fluids (as Light 
or its vehicle, the Calorific, the Electro-galvanic, and 
Magnetic agents) which we can neither denude of their 
character of substance, nor clothe with the attribute of 
weight." 

To which my reply is, that precisely because I cannot 
" clothe" these agents with the attribute of Weight, I 
do " denude them of the character of Substance." They 
are not substances, but agencies. These Imponderable 
Agents are not properly called " Imponderable Fluids.'* 
This I conceive that I have proved; and the proof is 
not shaken by denying the conclusion without showing 
any defect in the reasoning. 

(5) Finally, my critic speaks about "a logical canon," 
and about " a criterion of truth, subjectively necessary 
and objectively certain;" which matters I shall not 
waste the reader's time by discussing. 



CHAPTER XXYIIL 

Influence of German Systems of Philosophy in 
Britain. 



T!HE philosophy of Kant, as I have already said, 
involved a definite doctrine on the subject of the 
Fundamental Antithesis, and a correction of some of the 
errors of Locke and his successors. It was not however 
at first favourably received among British philosophers, 
and those who accepted it were judged somewhat ca- 
priciously and captiously. I will say a word on these 
points \ 

I. {Stewart) — Dugald Stewart, in his Dissertation 
on the Progress of the Moral Sciences, repeatedly men- 
tions Kant's speculations, and always unfavourably. 
In note I to Part I. of the Dissertation he says, " In 
our own times, Kant and his followers seem to have 
thought that they had thrown a strong light on the 
nature of space and also of time, when they introduced 
the word form {form of the intellect) as a common 
term applicable to both. Is not this to revert to the 
scholastic folly of verbal generalization?" And in 
Part II. he gives a long and laborious criticism of a 
portion of Kant's speculations ; of which the spirit 
may be collected from his describing them as resulting 
in " the metaphysical conundrum, that the human mind 
(considered as a noumenon and not as a phenomeiwri) 
neither exists in space nor time." And after mention- 
ing Meiners and Herder along with Kant, he adds, 



/ 



1 The remarks contained in this 
chapter have for the most part been 
already printed and circulated in a 



LdUr to the Author of Prolegonuna 
Logica, 1852. 



STEWART ON KANT. 333 

"I am ashamed to say that in Great Britain the only 
one of these names which has been much talked of 
is Kant." And again in Note EE, he translates some 
portion of the German philosopher, adding, that to the 
expressions so employed he can attach no meaning. 

Stewart, in his criticism of Kant's doctrines, re- 
marks that, in asserting that the human mind pos- 
sesses, in its own ideas, an element of necessary and 
universal truth, not derived from experience, Kant had 
been anticipated by Price, by Cudworth, and even by 
Plato; to whose Theoetetus both Price and Cudworth 
refer, as containing views similar to their own. And 
undoubtedly this doctrine of ideas, as indispeusable 
sources of necessary truths, was promulgated and sup- 
ported by weighty arguments in the Thecetetus; and 
has ever since been held by many philosophers, in 
opposition to the contrary doctrine, also extensively 
held, that all truth is derived from experience. But, 
in pointing out this circumstance as diminishing the 
importance of Kant's speculations, Stewart did not 
sufficiently consider that doctrines, fundamentally the 
same, may discharge a very different office at different 
periods of the history of philosophy. Plato's Dia- 
logues did not destroy, nor even diminish, the value of 
Cudworth's "Immutable Morality." Notwithstanding 
Cudwoi-th's publications, Price's doctrines came out a 
little afterwards with the air and with the effect of 
novelties. Cudworth's assertion of ideas did not pre- 
vent the rise of Hume's skepticism ; and it was Hume's 
skepticism which gave occasion to Kant's new assertion 
of necessary and universal truth, and to his examina- 
tion into the grounds of the possibility and reality of 
such truth. To maintain such doctrine after the appear- 
ance of intermediate speculations, and with reference 
to them, was very different from maintaining it before ; 
and this is the merit which Kant's admirers claim for 
him. Nor can it be denied that his writings produced 
an immense effect upon the mode of treating such 
questions in Germany; and have had, even in this 
country, an influence far beyond what Mr. Stewart 
would have deemed their due. 



334 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 



2. {Mr. G. H. Lewes.) — But as injustice has thus 
been done to Kant by confounding his case with that of 
his predecessors of like opinions, so on the other hand, 
injustice has also been done, both to him and those 
who have followed him in the assertion of ideas, by 
confounding their case with his. This injustice seems 
to me to be committed by a writer on the History of 
Philosophy, who has given an account of the successive 
schools of philosophy up to our own time; — has as- 
signed to Kant an important and prominent place 
in the recent history of metaphysics ; — but has still 
maintained that Kant's philosophy, and indeed every 
philosophy, is and must be a failure. In order to 
prove this thesis, the author naturally has to examine 
Kant's doctrines and the reasons assigned for them, 
and to point out what he conceives to be the fallacy of 
these arguments. This accordingly he professes to do ; 
but as soon as he has entered upon the argument, he 
substitutes, as his opponent, for the philosopher of 
Konigsberg, a writer of our own time and country, 
who does not profess himself a Kantian, who has been 
repeatedly accused, with whatever justice, of misrepre- 
senting what he has borrowed from Kant, and whose 
main views are, in the opinion of the writer himself, 
very different from Kant's. Mr. Lewes ^, in the chap- 
ter entitled " Examination of Kant's Fundamental 
Principles," after a preliminary statement of the points 
he intends to consider, says "Now to the ques- 
tion. As Kant confessedly was led to his own system 
by the speculations of Hume," and so on ; and forth- 
with he introduces the name of Dr. Wheioell as the 
wiiter whose views he has to criticize, without stating 
how he connects him with Kant, and goes on arguing 
against him for a dozen pages to the end of the Chapter. 



i 



* Biographical History of Philoso- 
phy, 1846. In a more recent edition 
the author of this work has modified 
his expressions, but still employs 
himself in arguing against Dr. Whe- 



well, in order to overthrow Kant. 
So far as his arguments affect my 
philosophy, they are, as I conceive, 
answered in the various expositions 
which I have given of that philosophy. 



-^ 



MR. G. H. LEWES ON KANT. 3^5 

3. It is true, liowevei', tliat I had adopted some of 
Kant^s views, or at least some of his arguments. The 
chapters^ on the Ideas of Space and Time in the Phi^ 
losophy of the Inductive Sciences^ were almost literal 
translations of chapters in the Kritih der Reinen Ver- 
nunft. Yet the author was charged by a reviewer at 
the time, with explaining these doctrines "in a manner 
incompatible with the clear views of Emanuel Kant."' 
It appeared to be assumed by the English admirers 
of the Kantian philosophy, that Kant's views were 
true and clear in Germany, but became untenable 
when adopted in England. 

4. (Mr. Mansel.) — But the most important of my 
critics on this ground is Mr. Mansel, who has revived 
the censure of my speculations as not doing justice to 
the Kantian philosophy. " It is much to be regretted,'* 
he says*, "that Dr. Whewell, who has made good use 
of Kantian principles in many parts of his Philosophy 
of tlie Inductive Sciences,^^ has not more accurately ob- 
served Kant's distinction between the necessary laws 
under which all men think, and the contingent laws 
under which certain men think of certain things. And 
farther on Mr. Mansel, after giving great praise to the 
general spirit of the Philosophy of the Inductive Set- 
■ences, says, " It is to be regretted that the accuracy of 
his theory has been in so many instances vitiated by a 
stumble at the threshold of the Critical Philosophy." 
Mr. Mansel is, indeed, by much the most zealous 
English Kantian whose writings I have seen ; — among 
those, I mean, who have brought original powers of 
philosophical thought to bear upon such subjects; and 
have not been, as some have been, enslaved by an 
admiration of German systems, just as bigotted as the 
contempt of them which others feel. And as Mr. 



3 B. ii. The Philosophy of the vii. Of the Idea of Time. Chap. viii. 
Pure Sciences. Chap. ii. Of the Idea Of some peculiarities of the Idea of 
of Space. Chap. iii. Of some pecu- Time, 
liarities of the Idea of Space. Chap. 

■* Prolegomena Logica, by H. L. Mansel, M. A, 1851. 



336 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 



,).. 



/ 



Mansel lias stated distinctly some of the points in 
wMch he conceives that I have erred in deviating 
from the doctrines of Kant, I should wish to make a 
few remarks on those points. 

5. Kant considers that Space and Time are con- 
ditions of perception, and hence sources of necessary 
and universal truth. Dr. Whewell agrees with Kant 
in placing in the mind certain sources of necessary 
truth; he calls these Fundamental Ideas, and reckons, 
besides Space and Time, others, as Cause, Likeness, 
Substance, and several more. Mr. Mill, the most 
recent and able expounder of the opposite doctrine, 
derives all truths from Observation, and denies that 
there is such a separate source of truth as Ideas. Mr. 
Mansel does not agree either with Mr. Mill or Dr. 
Whewell; he adheres to the original Kantian thesis, 
that Space and Time are sources of necessary truths, 
but denies the office to the other Fundamental Ideas 
of Dr. Whewell. In reading what has been said by 
Mr. Mill, Mr. Mansel, and other critics, on the subject 
of what I have called Fundamental Ideas, I am led to 
perceive that I have expressed myself incautiously, 
with regard to the identity of character between the 
first two of these Fundamental Ideas, namely. Space 
and Time, and the others, as Force, Composition, and 
the like. And I am desirous of explaining, to those 
who take an interest in these speculations, how far I 
claim for the other Fundamental Ideas the same cha- 
racter and attributes as for Space and Time. 

6. The special and characteristic property of all 
the Fundamental Ideas is what I have already men- 
tioned, that they are the mental sources of necessary 
and universal scientific truths. I call them Ideas^ 
as being something not derived from sensation, but 
governing sensation, and consequently giving form to 
our experience; — Fundamental, as being the founda- 
tion of knowledge, or at least of Science. And the 
way in which those Ideas become the foundations of 
Science is, that when they are clearly and distinctly 
entertained in the mind, they give rise to inevitable 
convictions or intuitions, which may be expressed as 



NEW AXIOMS POSSIBLE. 337 

Axioms; and these Axioms are the foundations of 
Sciences respective of each Idea. The Idea of Space, 
when clearly possessed, gives rise to geometrical Ax- 
ioms, and is thus the foundation of the Science of Geo- 
metry. The Idea of Mechanical Force, (a modification 
of the Idea of Cause,) when clearly developed in the 
mind, gives birth to Axioms which are the foundation 
of the Science of Mechanics. The Idea of Substance 
gives rise to the Axiom which is universally accepted, 
— that we cannot, by any process, (for instance, by 
chemical processes,) create or destroy matter, but can 
only combine and separate elements ; — and thus gives 
rise to the Science of Chemistry 

7. Now it may be observed, that in giving this 
account of the foundation of Science, I lay stress on 
the condition that the Ideas must be clearly and dis- 
tinctly possessed. The Idea of Space must be quite 
clear in the mind, or else the Axioms of Geometry 
will not be seen to be true : there will be no intuition 
of their truth; and for a mind in such a state, there 
can be no Science of Geometry. A man may have a 
confused and perplexed, or a vacant and inert state of 
mind, in which it is not clearly apparent to him, that 
two straight lines cannot inclose a space. But this is 
not a frequent case. The Idea of Space is much more 
commonly clear in the minds of men than the other 
Ideas on which science depends, as Force, or Sub- 
stance. It is much more common to find minds in 
which these latter Ideas are not so clear and distinct 
as to make the Axioms of Mechanics or of Chemistry 
self-evident. Indeed the examples of a state of mind 
in which the Ideas of Force or of Substance are so 
clear as to be made the basis of science, are compara- 
tively few. They are the examples of minds scienti- 
fically cultivated, at least to some extent. Hence, 
though the Axioms of Mechanics or of Chemistry may 
be, in their own nature, as evident as those of Geo- 
metry, they are not evident to so many persons, nor 
at so early a period of intellectual or scientific culture. 
And this being the case, it is not surprising that some 
persons should doubt whether these Axioms are evident 



338 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVEllT. 



,) 



/ 



at all; — should think that it is an error to assert 
that there exist, in such sciences as Mechanics or 
Chemistry, Fundamental Ideas, fit to be classed with 
), as being, like it, the origin of Axioms. 

In speaking of all the Fundamental Ideas as being 
alike the source of Axioms when clearly possessed, 
without dwelling sufficiently upon the amount of 
mental discipline which is requisite to give the mind 
this clear possession of most of them; and in not 
keeping before the reader the different degrees of evi- 
dence which, in most minds, the Axioms of different 
sciences naturally have, I have, as I have said, given 
occasion to my readers to misunderstand me. I will 
point out one or two passages which show that this 
misunderstanding has occurred, and will try to re- 
move it. 

8. The character of axiomatic truths seen by in- 
tuition is, that they are not only seen to be true, but 
to be necessary; — ^that the contrary of them is not 
only false, but inconceivable. But this inconceivable- 
ness depends entirely upon the clearness of the Ideas 
which the axioms involve. So long as those Ideas 
are vague and indistinct, the contrary of an Axiom 
may be assented to, though it cannot be distinctly 
conceived. It may be assented to, not because it is 
possible, but because we do not see clearly what is 
possible. To a person who is only beginning to think 
geometrically, there may appear nothing absurd in the 
assertion, that two straight lines may inclose a space. 
And in the same manner, to a person who is only 
beginning to think of mechanical truths, it may not 
appear to be absurd, that in mechanical processes, Re- 
action should be greater or less than Action; and so, 
again, to a person who has not thought steadily about 
Substance, it may not appear inconceivable, that by 
chemical operations, we should generate new matter, 
or destroy matter which already exists. 

Here then we have a difficulty : — the test of Axioms 
is that the contrary of them is inconceivable; and yet 
persons, till they have in some measure studied the 
subject, do not see this inconceivableness. Hence our 



NEW AXIOMS POSSIBLE. 339 

Axioms must be evident only to a small number of 
thinkers; and seem not to deserve the name of self- 
evident or necessary truths. 

This difficulty has been strongly urged by Mr. Mill, 
as supporting his view, that all knowledge of truth 
is derived from experience. And in order that the 
opposite doctrine, which I have advocated, may not 
labour under any disadvantages which really do not 
belong to it, I must explain, that I do not by any 
means assert that those truths which I regard as 
necessary, are all equally evident to common thinkers, 
or evident to persons in all stages of intellectual deve- 
lopment. I may even say, that some of those truths 
which I regard as necessary, and the necessity of which 
I believe the human mind to be capable of seeing, by 
due preparation and thought, are still such, that this 
amount of preparation and thought is rare and pecu- 
liar ; and I will willingly gi'ant, that to attain to and 
preserve such a clearness and subtlety of mind as this 
intuition requires, is a task of no ordinaiy difficulty 
and labour. 

9. This doctrine, — that some truths may be seen 
by intuition, but yet that the intuition of them may 
be a rare and difficult attainment, — I have not, it 
would seem, conveyed with sufficient clearness to ob- 
viate misapprehension. Mr. Mill has noticed a pas- 
sage of my Philosophy on this subject, which he has 
understood in a sense different from that which I in- 
tended. Speaking of the two Principles of Chemical 
Science, — that combinations are definite in kind, and 
in quantity, — I had tried to elevate myself to the 
point of view in which these Principles are seen, not 
only to be true, but to be necessary. I was aware 
that even the profoundest chemists had not ventured 
to do this; yet it appeared to me that there were con- 
siderations which seemed to show that any other rule 
would imply that the world was a world on which the 
human mind could not employ itself in scientific spe- 
culation at all. These considerations I ventured to 
put forwards, not as views which could at present be 
generally accepted, but as views to which chemical 

z 2 



340 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 



) 



/ 



philosophy appeared to me to tend. Mr. Mill, not 
unnaturally, I must admit, supposed me to mean that 
the two Principles of Chemistry just stated, are self- 
evident, in the same way and in the same degree as 
the Axioms of Geometry are so. I afterwards ex- 
plained that what I meant to do was, to throw out an 
opinion, that if we could conceive the composition of 
bodies distinctly^ we might be able to see that it is 
necessary that the modes of this composition should 
be definite. This Mr. Mill does not object to^: but 
he calls it a great attenuation of my former opinion; 
which he understood to be that we, (that is, men in 
general,) already see, or may see, or ought to see, this 
necessity. Such a general apprehension of the neces- 
sity of definite chemical composition I certainly never 
reckoned upon ; and even in my own mind, the 
thought of such a necessity was rather an anticipation 
of what the intuitions of philosophical chemists in 
another generation would be, than an assertion of what 
they now are or ought to be j much less did I expect 
that persons, neither chemists nor philosophers, would 
already, or perhaps ever, see that a proposition, so 
recently discovered to be true, is not only true, but 
necessary. 

lo. Of the bearing of this view on the question at 
issue between Mr. Mill and me, I may hereafter speak ; 
but I will now notice other persons who have mis- 
understood me in the same way. 

An able writer in the Edinhurgh Review^ has, in 
like manner, said, "Dr. Whewell seems to us to have, 
gone much too far in reducing to necessary truths 
what assuredly the generality of mankind will not feel 
to be so." It is a fact which I do not at all contest, 
that the generality of mankind will not feel the Axioms 
oi Chemistry, or even of Mechanics, to be necessary 
truths. But I had said, not that the generality of 
miankind would feel this necessity, but (in a passage 
just before quoted by the Reviewer) that the mind 



6 Logic, i. p. 273, 3rd edit 



« No. 193, p. 29. 



MR. HANSELS KANTIANISM. 34 1 

under certain circumstances attains a point of view 
from which it can pronounce mechanical (and other) 
fundamental truths to be necessary in their nature, 
though disclosed to us by experience and observation. 

Both the Edinburgh Reviewer and Mr. Mansel ap- 
pear to hold a distinction between the fundamental 
truths of Geometry, and those of the other subjects 
which I have classed with them. The latter says, 
that perhaps metaphysicians may hereafter establish 
the existence of other subjective conditions of intui- 
tions (or, as I should call them. Fundamental Ideas,) 
besides Space and Time, but that in asserting such to 
exist in the science of Mechanics, I certainly go too 
far : and he gives as an instance my Essay, — " Demon- 
stration that all matter is heavy." I certainly did 
not expect that the Principles asserted in that Essay 
would be assented to as readily or as generally as the 
Axioms of Geometry; but I conceive that I have 
there proved that Chemical Science, using the balance 
as one of its implements, cannot admit " imponderable 
bodies" among its elements. This impossibility will, 
I think, not only be found to exist in fact, but seen 
to exist necessarily, by chemists, in proportion as 
they advance towards general propositions of Chemical 
Science in which the so-called "imponderable fluids" 
enter. But even if I be right in this opinion, to how 
few will this necessity be made apparent, and how 
slowly will the intuition spread ! I am as well aware 
as my critics, that the necessity will probably never be 
apparent to ordinary thinkers. 

II. Though Mr. Mansel does not acknowledge any 
subjective conditions of intuition besides Space and 
Time, he does recognize other kinds of necessity , which 
I should equally refer to Fundamental Ideas; because 
they are, no less than Space and Time, the foundations 
of universal and necessary truths in science. Such 
are'^ the Principle of Substance; — All Qualities exist 
in some subject: and the Principle of Causality; — 



PtoI. Log. p. 123. 



342 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 



Every Event has its Cause. To these Principles lie 
ascribes a "metaphysical necessity," the nature and 
grounds of which he analyses with great acuteness. 
But what I have to observe is, that whatever differ- 
ences may be pointed out between the grounds of the 
necessity, in this case of metaphysical necessity, and in 
that which Mr. Mansel calls mathematical necessity 
which belongs to the Conditions or Ideas of Space 
and of Time; still, it is not the less true that the 
Ideas of Substance and of Cause, do afford a founda- 
tion for necessary truths, and that on these truths are 
built Sciences. That every Change must have a Cause, 
with the corresponding Axioms, — that the Cause is 
known by the Effect, and Measured by it, — is the 
basis of the Science of Mechanics. That there is a 
Substance to which qualities belong, with the corre- 
sponding Axiom, — that we cannot create or destroy 
Substance, though we may alter Qualities by combin- 
ing and separating Substances, — is the basis of the 
Science of Chemistry. And that this doctrine of the 
Indestructibility of Substance is a primary axiomatic 
truth, is certain; both because it has been universally 
taken for granted by men seeking for general truths; 
and because it is not and cannot be proved by expe- 
rience ^ So that I have here, even according to Mr. 
Mansel's own statement, other grounds besides Space 
and Time, for necessary truths in Science. 

12. Besides mathematical and metaphysical necessity, 
Mr. Mansel recognizes also a logical necessity. I will 
not pretend to say that this kind of necessity is ex- 
actly represented by any of those Fundamental Ideas 
which are the basis of Science ; but yet I think it will 
be found that this logical necessity mainly operates 
through tlie attribution of Names to things ; and that 
a large portion of its cogency arises from these maxims, 
— that names must be so imposed that General Pro- 
positions shall be possible, — and so that Reasoning 
shall be possible. Now these maxims are really the 



8 See Phil. Ind. Sc. b. vi. c. iiL 



MR. HANSELS KANTIANISM. 343 

basis of Natural History, and are so stated in the Phi- 
losophy of the Inductive Sciences. The former maxim 
is the principle of all Classification; and though we 
have no syllogisms in Natural History, the apparatus 
of genus, species, differentia, and the like, which was 
introduced in the analysis of syllogistic reasoning, is 
really more constantly applied in Natural History 
than in any other science. 

13. Besides the different kinds of necessity which 
Mr. Mansel thus acknowledges, I do not see why he 
should not, on his own principles, recognize others; as 
indeed he appears to me to do. He acknowledges, I 
think, the distinction of Primary and Secondary quali- 
ties j aud this must involve him in the doctrine that 
Secondary Qualities are necessarily perceived by means 
of a Medium. Again : he would, I think, acknow- 
ledge that in organized bodies, the parts exist for a 
Purpose; and Purpose is an Idea which cannot be in- 
ferred by reasoning from facts, without being possessed 
and applied as an Idea. So that there would, I con- 
ceive, exist, in his philosophy, all the grounds of neces- 
sary truth which I have termed Fundamental Ideas; 
only that he would further subdivide, classify, and ana- 
lyse, the kinds and grounds of this necessity. 

In this he would do well ; and some of his distinc- 
tions and analyses of this kind are, in my judgment, 
very instructive. But I do not see what objection 
there can be to my putting together all these kinds of 
necessity, when my purpose requires it ; and, inasmuch 
as they all are the bases of Science, I may call them 
by a general name ; for instance, Grounds of Scientific 
Necessity; and these are precisely what I mean by 
Fundamental Ideas. 

That some steady thought, and even some progress 
in the construction of Science, is needed in order to 
see the necessity of the Axioms thus introduced, is 
true, and is repeatedly asserted and illustrated in the 
History of the Sciences. The necessity of such Axioms 
is seen, but it is not seen at first. It becomes clearer 
and clearer to each person, and clear to one person 
after another, as the human mind dwells more and 



344 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 



more steadily on the several subjects of speculation. 
There are scientific truths which are seen hy intuition, 
hut this intuition is progressive. This is the remark 
which I wish to make in answer to those of my critics 
who have objected that truths which I have pro- 
pounded as Axioms, are not evident to all. 

14. That the Axioms of Science are not evident to 
all, is true enough, and too true. Take the Axiom of 
Substance: — that we may change the condition of a 
substance in various ways, but cannot destroy it. This 
has been assumed as evident by philosophers in all 
ages ; but if we ask an ordinary person whether a body 
can be destroyed by fire, or diminished, will he un- 
hesitatingly reply, that it cannot? It requires some 
thought to say^, as the philosopher said, that the 
weight of the smoke is to be found by subtracting the 
weight of the ashes from that of the fuel; nay, even 
when this is said, it appears, at first, rather an epigram 
than a scientific truth. Yet it is by thinking only, not 
by an experiment, that, from a happy guess it becomes 
a scientific truth. And the thought is the basis, not 
the result, of experimental truths; for which reason I 
ascribe it to a Fundamental Idea. And so, such truths 
are the genuine growth of the human mind; not in- 
nate, as if they needed not to grow; still less, dead 
tmgs plucked from experience and stuck in from with- 
out; not universal, as if they grew up everywhere; 
but not the less, under favourable circumstances, the 
genuine growth of the scientific intellect. 

15. Not only do I hold that the Axioms, on which 
the truths of science rest, grow from guesses into Ax- 
ioms in various ways, and often gradually, and at dif- 
ferent periods in difierent minds, and partially, even 
in the end; but I conceive that this may be sho^vn by 
the history of science, as having really happened, with 
regard to all the most conspicuous of such principles. 
The scientific insight which enabled discoverers to 
achieve their exploits, implied that they were among 



/ 



9 Kant. 



AXIOMS ARE NOT FROM EXPERIENCE. 345 

tlie first to acquire an intuitive conviction of the Ax- 
ioms of tlieir Science : the controversies which form so 
large a portion of the history of science, arise from the 
struggles between the clearsighted and the dimsighted, 
between those who were forwards and those who were 
backwards in the progress of ideas ; and these contro- 
versies have very often ended in diffusing generally a 
clearness of thought, on the controverted subject, which 
at first, the few only, or perhaps not even they, pos- 
sessed. The History of Science consists of the History 
of Ideas, as well as of the History of Experience and 
Observation. The latter portion of the subject formed 
the principal matter of my History of the Inductive 
Sciences; the former occupied a large portion of the 
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences^"; which, I may 
perhaps be allowed to explain, is, for the most part, a 
Historical Work no less than the other; and was writ- 
ten in a great measure, at the same time, and from the 
same survey of the works of scientific writers. 

16. I am aware that the explanation which I have 
given, may naturally provoke the opponents of the 
doctrine of scientific necessity to repeat their ordinary 
fundamental objections, in a form adapted to the ex- 
pressions which I have used. They may say, the fact 
that these so-called Axioms thus become evident only 
during the progress of experience, proves that they are 
derived from experience: they may, in reply to our 
image, say, that truths are stuck into the mind by ex- 
perience, as seeds are stuck into the ground; and that 
to maintain that they can grow under any other con- 
ditions, is to hold the doctrine of spontaneous genera- 
tion, which is equally untenable in the intellectual and 
in the physical world. I shall not however here re- 
sume the general discussion ; but shall only say briefly 
in reply, that Axioms, — for instance, this Axiom, that 
material substances cannot he created or annihilated hy 
any process which we can apply, — though it becomes 
evident in the progress of experience, cannot be derived 



W Republished as The History of Scientific Ideas. 



34^ PHILOSOPHY OP DISCOVERY. 

from experience; for it is a proposition which never 
has nor can be proved by experience; but which, 
nevertheless, has been always assumed by men, seeking 
for general truths, as necessarily true, and as control- 
ling and correcting all possible experience. And with 
regard to the image of vegetable development, I may 
say, that as such development implies both inherent 
forms in the living seed, and nutritive powers in earth 
and air ; so the development of our scientific ideas im- 
plies both a formative power, and materials acted on; 
and that, though the analogy must be very defective, 
we conceive that we best follow it by placing the form- 
ative power in the living mind, and in the external 
world the materials acted on : while the doctrine that 
all truth is derived from experience only, appears to 
reject altogether one of these elements, or to assert the 
two to be one. 



i 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Necessary Truth is progressive. 
Objections considered. 



THE doctrine that necessary truth is progressire 
is a doctrine very important in its bearing upon 
the nature of the human mind ; and, as I conceive, in 
its theological bearing also. But it is a doctrine to 
which objections are likely to be made from various 
quarters, and I will consider some of these objections. 

I. Necessary truths, it will be said, cannot in- 
crease in number. New ones cannot be added to the 
old ones. Eor necessary truths are those of which the 
necessity is plain and evident to all mankind — to the 
common sense of man; such as the axioms of geo- 
metry. But that which is evident to all mankind 
must be evident from the first : that which is plain to 
the common sense of man cannot require scientific dis- 
covery : that which is necessarily true cannot require 
accumulated proof. 

To this I reply, that necessary truths require for 
their apprehension a certain growth and development 
of the human mind. Though it is seen that they are 
necessarily true, this is seen only by those who think 
steadily and clearly, and to think steadily and clearly 
on any kind of subject, requires time and attention; — 
requires mental culture. This may be seen even in 
the case of the axioms of geometry. These axioms 
are self-evident: but to whom are they self-evident? 
Not to uncultured savages, or young children; or per- 
sons of loose vague habits of thought. To see the 
truth and necessity of geometrical axioms, we need 
geometrical culture. 

Therefore that any axioms are not evident without 
patient thought and continued study of the subject, 
does not disprove their necessity. Principles may be 



34^ PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

axiomatic and necessary, although they require time, 
and the progress of thought and of knowledge, to bring 
them to light. And axioms may be thus gradually 
brought to light by the progress of knowledge. 

Nor is it difficult to give examples of such axioms, 
other than geometrical. There is an axiom which has 
obtained currency among thoughtful men from the 
time that man began to speculate about himself and 
the universe : — E nihilo nil Jit : Nothing can be made 
of nothing. No material substance can be produced 
or destroyed by natural causes, though its form and 
consistence may be changed indefinitely. Is not this 
an axiom? a necessary truth? Yet it is not evident 
to all men at first, and without mental culture. At 
first and before habits of steady and consistent thought 
are formed, men think familiarly of the creation and 
destruction of matter. Only when the mind has 
received some philosophical culture does it see the 
truth and necessity of the axiom of substance, and then 
it does see it. 

And the axioms on which the science of mechanics 
rests, that the cause is measured by the efiects, that 
reaction is equal and opposite to action, and the like, — • 
are not these evident to a mind cultivated by steady 
thought on such subjects? and do they not require 
such culture of the mind in order to see them? Are 
they not obscure or uncertain to those who are not so 
cultured, that is to common thinkers : to the general 
bulk of mankind ? Thus then it requires the discipline 
of the science of mechanics to enable the mind to see 
the axioms of that science. 

And does not this go further, as science and the 
careful study of the grounds of science go further? To 
a person well disciplined in mechanical reasoning it 
has become, not a conclusion, but a principle, that in 
mechanical action what is gained in power is lost in 
time : or that in any change, the force gained is equal 
to the force lost, so that new force cannot be generated, 
any more than new matter, by natural changes. Is tliis 
an axiom? a necessary fundamental truth? It appears 
so to at least one great thinker and discoverer now 



NECESSARY TRUTH IS PROGRESSIVE. 349 

alive among us. If it do not appear so to us, or not 
in the same sense, may not this be because we have 
not yet reached his point of view? May not the con- 
viction which is now his alone become hereafter the 
conviction of the philosophical world? And whatever 
the case may be in this instance, have there not been 
examples of this progress? Did not Galileo and the 
disciples of Galileo reduce several mechanical prin- 
ciples to the character of necessary truths, after they 
had by experiment and reasoning discovered them to 
be actually true? And have we not in these cases so 
many proofs that necessary truth is progressive, along 
with the progress of knowledge ? 

2. But, it will be said, the necessary character 
claimed for such truths is an illusion. The pro- 
positions so brought into view are really established 
by observation : by the study of external facts : and 
it is only the effect of habit and familiarity whic]i 
makes men of science, when they well know them 
to be true, think them to be necessarily true. They 
are really the results of experience, as their history 
shows j and therefore cannot be necessary and d priori 
truths. 

To which I reply : Such principles as I have men- 
tioned, — that material substance cannot be produced 
or destroyed — that the cause is measured by the effect 
— that reaction is equal and opposite to action : are 
not the results of experience, nor can be. No experi- 
ence can prove them ; they are necessarily assumed as 
the interpretation of experience. They were not proved 
in the course of scientific investigations, but brought 
to light as such investigations showed their necessity. 
They are not the results, but the conditions of experi- 
mental sciences. If the Axiom of Substance were not 
true, and were not assumed, we could not have such a 
science as Chemistry, that is, we could have no know- 
ledge at all respecting the changes of form of substances. 
If the Axioms of Mechanics were not true and were 
not assumed, we could have no science of Mechanics, 
that is, no knowledge of the laws of force acting on 
;matter. It is not any special results of the science 



350 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

in such cases ; but the existence, the possibility, of 
any science, which establishes the necessity of these 
axioms. They are not the consequences of knowledge, 
acquired from without, but the internal condition of 
our being able to know. And when we are to know 
concerning any new subject contained in the universe, 
it is not inconceivable nor strange that there should 
be new conditions of our knowledge. 

It is not inconceivable or strange, therefore, that as 
new sciences are formed, new axioms, the foundations 
of such sciences, should come into view. As the light 
of clear and definite knowledge is kindled in suc- 
cessive chambers of the universe, it may disclose, not 
only the aspect of those new apartments, but also 
the form and structure of the lamp which man is thus 
allowed to carry from point to point, and to transmit 
from hand to hand. And though the space illumined 
to man's vision may always be small in comparison 
with the immeasurable abyss of darkness by which it 
is surrounded, and though the light may be dim and 
feeble, as well as partial ; this need not make us doubt 
that, so far as we can by the aid of this lamp, we see 
truly : so far as we discern the necessary laws of the 
universe, the laws are true, and their truth is rooted 
in that in which the being of the universe is rooted. 

And, to dwell for a moment longer on this image, 
we may also conceive that all that this lamp — the 
intellect of man cultivated by science, — does, by the 
light which it gives, is this — that it dispels a dark- 
ness which is dark for man alone, and discloses to 
him some things in some measure as all things lie in 
clear and perfect light before the eye of God. To 
the Divine Mind all the laws of the universe are 
plain and clear in all their multiplicity, extent and 
depth. The human mind is capable of seeing some 
of these laws, though only a few; to some extent, 
though but a little way; to some depth, though never to 
the bottom. But the Human Mind, can, in the course 
of ages and generations, by the long exercise of thought, 
successfully employed in augmenting knowledge, im- 
prove its powers of vision ; and may thus come to see 



NECESSARY TRUTH IS PROGRESSIVE. 35 1 

more laws tlian at first, to trace their extent more 
largely, to understand them more thoroughly ; and 
thus the inward intellectual light of man may become 
broader and broader from age to age, though ever 
naiTOw when compared with completeness. 

3. Is it strange to any one that inward light, as 
well as outward knowledge, should thus increase in 
the course of man's earthly career 1 that as knowledge 
extends, the foundations of knowledge should expand 1 
that as man goes on discovering new truths, he should 
also discover something concerning the conditions of 
truth ? Is it wonderful that as science is progressive 
the philosojohy of science also should be progressive ? 
that as we know more of everything else, we should 
also come to know more of our powers of knowing? 

This does not seem to have been supposed by philo- 
sophers in general ; or rather, they have assumed that 
they could come to know more about the powers of 
knowing by thinking about them, even without taking 
into account the light thrown upon the nature of 
knowledge by the progress of knowledge. From Plato 
downwards, through Aristotle, through the Schoolmen, 
to Descartes, to Locke, to Kant, Schelling and Hegel, 
philosophers have been perpetually endeavouring to 
explore the nature, the foundations, the consequences 
of our knowledge. But since Plato, scarcely one of 
them has ever proceeded as if new light were thrown 
upon knowledge by new knowledge. They have, 
many or all of them, attempted to establish funda- 
mental tniths, some of them new fundamental truths, 
about the human mind and the nature and conditions 
of its knowledge. These attempts show that they do 
not deny or doubt that there may be such new fun- 
damental truths. Such new fundamental truths re- 
specting the human mind and respecting knowledge 
must be, in many cases at least, (as it will be seen 
that they are, on examining the systems proposed 
by the philosophers just mentioned,) seen by their own 
light to be true. They are new axioms in philosophy. 
These philosophers therefore, or their disciples, cannot 
consistently blame us for holding the possibility of 
new axioms being introduced into philosophy from age 




i 



352 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

to age, as there arise pMlosophers more and more 
clear-sighted. 

4. 5ut though they have no ground for rejecting 
our new axioms merely because they are new, we may 
have good ground for doubting the value of their new 
axioms, that is, of the foundations of their systems; 
because they are new truths about knowledge gathered 
by merely exploring the old fields of knowledge. We 
found our hopes of obtaining a larger view of the 
constitution of the human mind than the early philo- 
sophers had, on this : — that we obtain our view by 
studying the operation of the human mind since their 
time; its progress in acquiring a large stock of uncon- 
tested truths and in obtaining a wide and real know- 
ledge of the universe. Here are new materials which 
the ancients had not ; and which may therefore justify 
the hope that we may build our philosophy higher than 
the ancients did. But modern philosophers who use 
only the same materials as the ancient philosophers 
used, have not the same grounds for hope which we 
have. If they borrow all their examples and illustra- 
tions of man's knowledge of the universe, from the con- 
dition of the universe as existing in Space and Time, 
that is, from the geometrical condition of the universe, 
they may fail to obtain the light which might be 
obtained if they considered that the universe is also 
subject to conditions of Substance, of Cause and JEffect, 
of Force and Matter: is filled with Kinds of things, 
in whose structure we assume Design and Ends; and 
so on; and if they reflected that these conditions or 
Ideas are not mere vague notions, but the bases of 
sciences which all thoughtful persons allow to be cer- 
tain and real. 

It is then, as I have said, from taking advantage of 
the progressive character which physical science, in the 
history of man, has been found to possess, that I hope 
to learn more of the nature and prospects of the hu- 
man mind and soul, than those can learn who still take 
their stand on the old limited ground of man's know- 
ledge. The knowledge of Geometry by the Greeks 
was the starting-point of their sound philosophy. It 
showed that something might be certainly known, and 



NECESSARY TRUTH IS PROGRESSIVE. 353 

it showed, in some degree, how it was known. It 
thus refuted the skepticism which was destroying phi- 
losophy, and offered specimens of solid truth for the 
philosopher to analyse. But the Greeks tried to go 
beyond geometry in their knowledge of the universe. 
They tried to construct a science of Astronomy — of 
Harmonics — of Optics — of Mechanics. In the two 
former subjects, they succeeded to a very considerable 
extent. The question then arose. What was the philo- 
sophical import of these new sciences? What light did 
they throw on the nature of the universe, on the nature 
of knowledge, on the nature of the human mind? These 
questions Plato attempted to answer. He said that 
the lesson of these new sciences is this: — that the 
universe is framed upon the Divine Ideas; that man 
can to a certain extent obtain sight of these Ideas ; and 
that when he does this, he knows concerning the uni- 
verse. And again, he also put the matter otherwise : 
there is an hitelligihle World^ of which the Visible and 
Sensible world is only a dim image. Science consists 
in understanding the Intelligible World, which man is 
to a certain extent able to do, by the nature of his 
understanding. This was Plato's philosophy, founded 
upon the progress which human Imowledge had made 
up to his time. Since his time, knowledge, that is 
science, has made a large additional progress. What 
is the philosophical lesson to be derived from this pro- 
gress, and from the new provinces thus added to 
human knowledge? This is a question which I have 
tried to answer. I am not aware that any one since 
Plato has taken this line of speculation ; — I mean, has ' 
tried to spell out the lesson of philosophy which is 
taught us, not by one specimen, or a few only, of the 
knowledge respecting the universe which man has 
acquired ; but by including in his survey all the pro- 
vinces of human knowledge, and the whole history of 
each. At any rate, whatever any one else may have 
done in this way, it seems to me that new inferences 
remain to be drawn, of the nature of those which Plato 
drew: and those I here attempt to deduce and to 
illustrate. 

A A 



CHAPTER XXX. 

The Theological Bearing of the Philosophy of 
Discovery. 



THAT necessary truth is progressive; — that science 
is the idealization of facts, and that this process 
goes on from age to age, and advances with the ad- 
vance of scientific discovery; — these are doctrines 
which I have endeavoured to establish and to eluci- 
date. If these doctrines are true, they are so import- 
ant that I may be excused should I return to them again 
and again, and trace their consequences in various di- 
rections. Especially I would examine the bearing of 
these doctrines upon our religious philosophy. I have 
hitherto abstained in a great measure from discussing 
religious doctrines ; but such a reserve carried too far 
must deprive our philosophy of all completeness. No 
philosophy of science can be complete which is not 
also a philosophy of the universe; and no philosophy 
of the universe can satisfy thoughtful men, which does 
not include a reference to the power by which the uni- 
verse came to be what it is. Supposing, then, such a 
reference to be admitted, let us see what aspect our 
doctrines give to it. 

I. {How can there he necessary trutlis concerning 
the actual universe ?) — In looking at the bearing of our 
doctrine on the philosophy of the universe, we are met 
by a difficulty, which is indeed, only a former difficulty 
under a new aspect. When we are come to the con- 
clusion that science consists of facts idealized, we are 
led to ask, How this can be*? How can facts be ideal- 
ized? How can that which is a fact of external obser- 
vation become a result of internal thought 1 How can 
that which was known d i^osteriori become known CL 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 355 

priori? How can the world of things be identified 
with the world of thoughts'? How can we discover a 
necessary connexion among mere phenomena 1 

Or to put the matter otherwise : How is it that the 
deductions of the intellect are verified in the world of 
sense 1 How is it that the truths of science obtained 
d priori are exemplified in the general rules of facts 
observed a 2^osteriori ? How is it that facts, in science, 
always do correspond to our ideas ? 

I have propounded this paradox in various forms, 
because I wish it to be seen that it is, at first sight, a 
real, not merely a verbal contradiction, or at least a 
difficulty. If we can discover the solution of this dif- 
ficulty in any one form, probably we can transpose 
the answer so as to suit the other forms of the 
question. 

2. Suppose the case to be as I have stated it ; that in 
some sciences at least, laws which were at first facts of 
observation come to be seen as necessary truths; and 
let us see to what this amounts in the several sciences. 

It amounts to this : the truths of Geometry, such as 
we discern them by the exercise of our own thoughts, 
are always verified in the world of observation. The 
laws of space, derived from our Ideas, are universally 
true in the external world. 

In the same way, as to number : the laws or truths 
respecting number, which are deduced from our Idea of 
Number, are universally true in the external world. 

In the same way, as to the science which deals 
with matter and force : the truths of whicli I have 
spoken as derived from Ideas : — that action is equal to 
reaction; and that causes are measured by their efiects ; 
— are universally verified in all the laws of phenomena 
of the external world, which are disclosed by the 
science of Mechanics. 

In the same way with regard to the composition and 
resolution of bodies into their elements; the truths 
derived from our Idea of Matter : — that no composition 
or resolution can increase or diminish the quantity of 
matter in the world, and that the properties of com- 
pounds are determined by their composition; — are 

AA 2 



.) 



35^ PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

truths derived from Ideas of quantity of matter, and of 
composition and resolution; but these truths are uni- 
versally verified when we come to the facts of Che- 
mistry. 

In the same way it is a truth fiowing from the Ideas 
of the Kinds of things, (as the possible subject of general 
propositions expressed in language,) that the kinds of 
things must be definite ; and this law is verified when- 
ever we express general propositions in general terms : 
for instance, when we distinguish species in Mine- 
ralogy. 

3. This last example may appear to most readers 
doubtful. I have purposely pursued the enumeration 
till I came to a doubtful example, because it is, and I 
conceive always will be, impossible to extend this gene- 
ral view to all the Sciences. On the contrary, this doc- 
trine applies at present to only a very few of the sci- 
ences, even in the eyes of those who hold the existence 
of ideal truths. The doctrine extends at present to a 
few only of the sciences, even if it extend to one or 
two besides those which have been mentioned — Geo- 
metry, Mechanics, Chemistry, Mineralogy : and though 
it may hereafter appear that Ideal Truths are possible 
and attainable for a few other sciences, yet the laws 
disclosed by sciences which cannot be reduced to ideal 
elements will, I conceive, always very far outnumber 
those which can be so reduced. The great body of our 
scientific knowledge will always be knowledge obtained 
by mere observation, not knowledge obtained by the 
use of theories alone. 

4. The survey of the history and philosophy of the 
Sciences which we have attempted in previous works 
enables us to ofier a sort of estimate of the relative 
portions of science which have and which have not 
thus been idealized. For the Aphorisms^ which we 
have collected from that survey, contain Axioms which 
may be regarded as the Ideal portions of the various 
sciences ; and the inspection of that series of aphorisms 
will show us to how such a portion of science, any- 



^ Given in the Novum Organon Benovatum. 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 357 

thing of this axiomatic or ideal character can he ap- 
plied. These Axioms are the Axioms of Geometry 
(Aphorism XXVI); of Arithmetic (XXXYI); of 
Causation (XLYII) ; of a medium for the sensation of 
secondary qualities (LYIII), and their measure (LXIX); 
of Polarity (LXXII); of Chemical Affinity (LXXYI) ; 
of Substance (LXXYII); of Atoms (LXXIX). 

Have we any axioms in the sciences which succeed 
these in our survey, as Botany, Zoology, Biology, Pa- 
laeontology ? 

There is the Axiom of Symmetry (LXXX) ; of Kind, 
(already in some measure spoken of, (LXXXIII)); of 
Final Cause (CY); of First Cause (CXYI). 

5. (Small extent of necessary truth.) — It is easily 
seen how small a portion of each of these latter sciences 
is included in these axioms : while, with regard to the 
sciences first mentioned, the Axioms include, in a man- 
ner, the whole of the science. The science is only 
the consequence of the Axioms. The whole science of 
Mechanics is only the development of the Axioms con- 
cerning action and reaction, and concerning cause and 
its measures, which I have mentioned as a part of our 
Ideal knowledge. 

In fact, beginning from Geometry and Arithmetic, 
and going through the sciences of Mechanics, of Second- 
ary Qualities, and of Chemistry, onwards to the sci- 
ences which deal with Organized Beings, we find that 
our ideal truths occupy a smaller and smaller share of 
the sciences in succession, and that the vast variety of 
facts and phenomena which nature offers to us, is less 
and less subject to any rules or principles which we 
can perceive to be necessary. 

But still, that there are principles, — necessary princi- 
ples, which prevail universally even in these higher 
parts of the natural sciences, — appears on a careful con- 
sideration of the axioms which I have mentioned: — that 
in symmetrical natural bodies the similar parts are 
similarly affected ; — that every event must have a cause; 
— that there must be a First Cause, and the like. 

6. It being established, then, that in the progress 
of science, facts are idealized — that a 'posteriori truths 



r 



•) 



i 



358 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

become a priori truths ; — tliat the world of things is 
identified with the world of thoughts to a certain ex- 
tent; — to an extent which grows larger as we see into 
the world of things more clearly; the question recurs 
which I have already asked : How can this be 1 

How can it be that the world without us is thus in 
some respects identical with the world within us? — 
that is our question. 

7. {How did things come to he as they are?) — It 
would seem that we may make a step in the solution 
of this question, if we can answer this other: How 
did the world without us and the world within us come 
to be what they are? 

To this question, two very difierent answers are re- 
turned by those who do and those who do not believe 
in a Supreme Mind or Intelligence, as the cause and 
foundation of the world. 

Those who do not believe that the world has for its 
cause and foundation a Supreme Intelligence, or who 
do not connect their philosophy with this belief, would 
reply to our inquiry, that the reason why man's 
thoughts and ideas agree with the world is, that they 
are borrowed from the world ; and that the persuasion 
that these Ideas and truths derived from them have 
any origin except the world without us, is an il- 
lusion. 

On this view I shall not now dwell; for I wish to 
trace out the consequences of the opposite view, that 
there exists a Supreme Mind, which is the cause and 
foundation of the universe. Those who hold this, and 
who also hold that the human mind can become pos- 
sessed of necessary truths, if they are asked how it is 
that these necessary truths are universally verified in 
the material world, will reply, that it is so because the 
Supreme Creative-Mind has made it so to be: — that the 
truths which exist or can be generated in man's mind 
agree with the laws of the universe, because He who 
has made and sustains man and the universe has 
caused them to agree : — that our Ideas correspond to 
the Facts of the world, and the Tacts to our Ideas, 
because our Ideas are given us by the same power 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 359 

wliicli made tlie world, and given so that these can 
and must agree with the world so made. 

8. ( View of the Theist). — This, in its general form, 
would be the answer of the theist, (so we may call 
him who believes in a Supreme Intelligent Cause of 
the world and of man,) to the questions which we 
have propounded — the perplexity or paradox which 
we have tried to bring into view. But we must en- 
deavour to trace this view — ^this answer — more into 
detail. 

If a Supreme Intelligence be the cause of the world 
and of the Laws which prevail among its phenomena, 
these Laws must exist as Acts of that Intelligence — 
as Laws caused by the thoughts of the Supreme Mind 
— as Ideas in the Mind of God. And then the ques- 
tion would be, How we are to conceive these thoughts, 
these Ideas, to be at the same time Divine and human : 
— to be at the same time Ideas in the Divine Mind, 
and necessary truths in the human mind; and this is 
the question which I would now inquire into. 

9. {Is this PlatonisTYi ?) — To the terms in which the 
inquiry is now propounded it may be objected that I 
am taking for granted the Platonic doctrine, that the 
world is constituted according to the Ideas of the 
Divine Mind. It may be said that this doctrine is 
connected with gross extravagancies of speculation 
and fiction, and has long been obsolete among sound 
philosophers. 

To which I reply, that if such doctrines have been 
pushed into extravagancies, with them I have nothing 
to do, nor have I any disposition or wish to revive 
them. But I do not conceive the doctrine, to the ex- 
tent to which I have stated it, to be at all obsolete : — 
that the Cause and Foundation of the Universe is a 
Divine Mind : and from that doctrine it necessarily 
follows, that the laws of the Universe are in the Ideas 
of the Divine Mind. 

I would then, as I have said, examine the conse- 
quences of this doctrine, in reference to the question 
of which I have spoken. And in order to do this, it 
may help us, if we consider separately the bearing of 




I 



360 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

this doctrine upon separate portions of our knowledge 
of the universe; — separately its bearing upon the laws 
which form the subject-matter of different sciences : — 
if we take particular human Ideas, and consider what 
the Divine Ideas must be with regard to each of them. 

10. {Idea of Space.) — Let us take, in the first place, 
the Idea of Space. Concerning this Idea we possess 
necessary truths; namely, the Axioms of Geometry; 
and, as necessarily resulting from them, the whole body 
of Geometry. And our former inquiry, as narrowed 
within the limits of this Idea, will be, How is it that 
the truths of Geometry — ci priori truths — are univer- 
sally verified in the observed phenomena of the uni- 
verse ? And the theist's answer which we have given 
will now assume this form : — This is so because the 
Supreme Mind has constituted and constitutes the uni- 
verse according to the Idea of Space. The universe 
conforms to the Idea of Space, and the Idea of Space 
exists in the human mind; — is necessarily evoked and 
awakened in the human mind existing in the universe. 
And since the Idea of Space, which is a constituent of 
the universe, is also a constituent of the human mind, 
the consequences of this Idea in the universe and in 
the human mind necessarily coincide; that is, the 
spacial Laws of the universe necessarily coincide with 
the spacial Science which man elaborates out of his 
mind. 

11. To this it may be objected, that we suppose the 
Idea of Space in the Divine Mind (according to which 
Idea, among others, the universe is constituted,) to be 
identical with the Idea of Space in the human mind; 
and this, it may be urged, is too limited and material a 
notion of the Divine Mind to be accepted by a reve- 
rent philosophy. 

I reply, that I suppose the Divine Idea of Space 
and the human Idea of Space to coincide, only so far 
as the human Idea goes; and that the Divine Idea 
may easily have so much more luminousness and com- 
prehensiveness as Divine Ideas may be supposed to 
have compared with human. Further, that this Idea 
of Space, the first of the Ideas on which human science 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 36 1 

is founded, is the most luminous and comprehensive of 
such Ideas; and there are innumerable other Ideas, 
the foundations of sciences more or less complete, which 
are extremely obscure and limited in the human mind, 
but which must be conceived to be perfectly clear and 
unlimitedly comprehensive in the Divine Mind. And 
thus, the distance between the human and the Divine 
Mind, even as to the views which constitute the most 
complete of the human sciences, is as great in our 
view as in any other. 

12. That the Idea of Space in the human mind, 
though sufficiently clear and comprehensive to be the 
source of necessary truths, is far too obscure and limited 
to be regarded as identical with the Divine Idea, will be 
plain to us, if we call to mind the j^erplexities which 
the human mind falls into when it speculates concern- 
ing space infinite. An Intelligence in which all these 
perplexities should vanish by the light of the Idea 
itself, would be infinitely elevated in clearness and 
comprehensiveness of intellectual vision above human 
intelligence, even though its Idea of Space should coin- 
cide with the human Idea as far as the human Idea 
goes. 

I do not shrink from saying, therefore, that the 
Idea of Space which is a constituent of the -human 
mind existing in the universe is, as far as it goes, 
identical with the Idea of Space which is a constituent 
of the universe. And this I give as the answer to 
the question^ How it is that the necessary truths of 
Geometry universally coincide with the relations of 
the phenomena of the universe] And this doctrine, 
it is to be remembered, carries us to the further doc- 
trine, that the Idea of Space in the human mind is, so 
far as it goes, coincident with the Idea of Space in 
the Divine Mind. 

13. [Idea of Time) — What I have said of the Idea 
of Space, may be repeated, for the most part, with regard 
to the Idea of Time j except that the Idea of Time, as 
such, does not give rise to a large collection of neces- 
sary truths, such as the propositions of Geometry. 
Some philosophers regard Number as a modification 




362 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

or derivative of the Idea of Time. If we accept this 
view, we have, in the Science of Arithmetic, a body of 
necessary truths which flow from the Idea of Time. 
But this doctrine, whichever way held, does not bear 
much on the question with which we are now con- 
cerned. That which we do hold is, that the Idea of 
Time in the human mind is, so far as it goes, coin- 
cident with the Idea of Time in the Divine Mind : 
and that this is the reason why the events of the uni- 
verse, as contemplated by us, conform to necessary 
laws of succession: while at the same time we must 
suppose that all the perplexities in the Idea of Time 
which embarrass the human mind — the perplexities, 
for instance, which arise from contemplating a past 
and a future eternity, are, in the Divine Mind, extin- 
guished in the Light of the Idea itself 

Space and Time have, and have generally been re- 
garded as having, peculiar prerogatives in our specu- 
lations concerning the constitution of the universe. 
We see and perceive all things as subject to the laws 
of Space and Time ; or rather (for the term Law does 
not here satisfy us), as being and happening in space 
and in time : and probably most persons will have no 
repugnance to the doctrine that the Divine Mind, as 
well as. the human, so regards them, and has so con- 
stituted them and us that they must be so regarded. 
Space and Time are human Ideas which include all 
objects and events, and are the foundation of all Imman 
Science. And we can conceive that Space and Time 
are also Divine Ideas which the Divine Mind causes 
to include all objects and events, and makes to be the 
foundation of all existence. So far as these Ideas go, 
our doctrine is not difficult or new. 

14. {Ideas of Force and Matter.) — But what are we 
to say of the Ideas which come next in the survey of the 
sciences, Force and Matter 1 These are human Ideas 
— the foundations of several sciences — of the mecha- 
nical sciences in particular. But are they the founda- 
tions of necessary truths'? Have we necessary truths 
respecting Force and Matter? We have endeavoured 
to prove that we have : — that certain fundamental pro- 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 363 

positions in the Science of Mechanics, although, his- 
torically speaking, they were discovered by observa- 
tion and experience, are yet, philosophically speaking, 
necessary propositions. And being such, the facts of 
the universe must needs conform to these propositions ; 
and the reason why they do so, we hold, in this as in 
the former case, to be, that these Ideas, Force and 
Matter, are Ideas in the Divine Mind : — Ideas accord- 
ing to which the universe is^ by the Divine Cause, 
constituted and established. 

15. That Force and Matter are Ideas existing in 
the Divine Mind, and coincident v/ith the Idea of Force 
and Matter in the human mind, as far as these go, 
is a doctrine which is important in our view of the 
universe in relation to its Cause and Foundation. 

These are very comprehensive and fundamental 
Ideas, and there are certain universal relations among 
external things which rest upon these Ideas. The two, 
Force and Matter, are, in a certain way, the necessary 
antithesis and opposite condition each of the other. 
Force (that is Mechanical Force, Pressure or Impulse) 
cannot act without matter to act upon. Matter (that 
is Body) cannot exist without Force by which it is kept 
in its place, by which its parts are held together, and 
by which it excludes every other body from the place 
Avhich it occupies. "We cannot conceive Force with- 
out Matter, or Matter without Force ; the two are, as 
Action and Reaction, necessarily co-ordinate and co- 
existent. In every part of the universe they must be 
so. In every part of the universe, if there be material 
objects, there must be Force; if there be Force, there 
must be material objects. 

Our apprehension of this universal necessity arises 
from our having the Ideas of Force and Matter which 
are human Ideas. The actuality of this universal anti- 
thesis arises from the Ideas of Force and Matter being 
Ideas in the Divine Mind ; — Ideas realized as a part of 
the fundamental constitution of the universe. 

That Force and Matter are thus among the Ideas in 
the Divine Mind, and that, with them, the Ideas of 
Force and Matter in the human mind, regarded in their 






:') 



364 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

most general form, agree so far as they go, is another 
step in the doctrine which I am trying to unfold. 
That the Ideas of Force and Matter in the Divine 
Mind are such as to banish by their own light, innu- 
merable contradictions and perplexities which darken 
these Ideas in the human mind, is to be supposed : and 
thus the Divine Mind is infinitely luminous and com- 
prehensive compared with the human mind. 

16. {Creation of Matter.) — It may perhaps be urged, 
as an objection to this doctrine, that it asserts Matter to 
be a necessary constituent of the universe, and thus 
involves the assertion of the eternity of Matter. But 
in reality the doctrine asserts Matter to be eternal, 
only in the way in which time and space are eternal. 
Whether we hold that there was a creation before 
which time and space did not exist, — with the poet 
who says 

Ere Time and Space were Time and Space were not, — ' 

is not essential to our present inquiry. Certainly we 
cannot conceive such a state, and therefore cannot 
reason about it. We have no occasion here to speak 
of Creation, nor have spoken of it. What I have said 
is, that Space and Time, Force and Matter are univer- 
sal elements, principles, constituents, of the universe 
as it is — and necessary Ideas of the human mind ex- 
isting in that universe. If there ever was a Creation 
before which Matter did not exist, it was a Creation 
before which Force did not exist. And in the universe 
as it is, the two are necessarily co-existent in the human 
thought because they are co-existent in the Divine 
Thought which makes the world. 

We apply then to Force and Matter the doctrine — 
the PJatonic doctrine, if any one please so to call it, — 
that the world is constituted according to the Ideas of 
the Divine Mind, and that the human mind appre- 
hends the inward and most fundamental relations of 
the universe by sharing in some measure of those same 
Ideas. 

17. {Platonic Ideas.) — But do we go on with Plato 
to extend this doctrine of Ideas to all the objects and 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 365 

aU the aspects of objects whidi constitute the material 
universe? Do we say with Plato that there is not 
only an Idea of a Triangle by conformity to which a 
figure is a triangle, but an Idea of Gold, by conformity 
to which a thing is gold, and Idea of a Table, by con- 
formity to which a thing is a table 1 

We say none of these things. We say nothing 
which at all approaches to them. We do not say that 
there is an Idea of a Triangle, the archetype of all 
triangles; we only say that man has an Idea of Space, 
which is an Idea of a fundamental reality ; and that 
therefore from this Idea flow real and universal truths — 
about triangles and other figures. Still less do we say 
that we have an archetypal Idea of Gold, or of a Metal 
in general, or of any of the kinds of objects which 
exist in the world. Here we part company with Plato 
altogether. 

But have we any Ideas at all with regard to objects 
which we thus speak of as separable into Kinds 1 We 
can have knowledge, — even exact and general know- 
ledge, that is, science — with regard to such things — 
with regard to plants and metals — gold and iron. Do we 
possess in our minds, with regard to those objects, any 
Ideas, any universal principles, such as we possess with 
regard to geometrical figures or mechanical actions ? 
And if so, are those human Ideas verified in the uni- 
verse, as the Ideas hitherto considered are ? and do 
they thus afibrd us further examples of Ideas in the 
human mind which are also Ideas in the Divine Mind, 
manifested in the constitution of the universe ? 

1 8. {Idea 0/ Kinds.) — We answer Yes to these ques- 
tions, on this ground : — the obj ects that exist in the 
world, plants and metals, gold and iron, for example, 
in order that they may be objects with regard to which 
we can have any knowledge, must be objects of distinct 
and definite thought. Plant must differ from metal, 
gold from iron, in order that we may know anything 
at all about any of these objects. The differences by 
which such objects differ need not necessarily be ex- 
pressed by definitions, as the difference of a triangle 
and a square are expressed; but there must manifestly 






:') 



366 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

he fixed and definite differences, in order that Ave may 
have any knowledge about them. These Kinds of 
things must be so far distinct and definite, as to be 
objects of distinct and definite thought. The Kinds of 
natural objects must differ, and we must think of things 
as of different Kinds, in order that we may know any- 
thing about natural objects. Living in a world in 
which we exercise our Intellect upon the natural ob- 
jects which surround us, we must regard them as 
distinct from each other in Kind. "We must have an 
Idea of Kinds of natural objects. 

1 9. The Idea of a Kind involves this principle : 
That where the Kind differs the Properties may differ, 
but so far as the Kind is the same the Properties con- 
templated in framing the notion of each Kind are the 
same. Gold cannot have the distinctive properties of 
Iron without being Iron. 

In the case of human knowledge, each Kind is 
marked by a word — a name; and the doctrine that 
the notion of the Kind must be so applied that this 
same Kind of object shall have the same properties, 
has been otherwise expressed by saying that Names 
must be so applied that general propositions may be 
possible. We. must so apply the name of Gold that we 
may be able to say, gold has a specific gravity of a 
certain amount a.nd is ductile in a certain degree. 

20. But this condition of the names of Kinds, — 
that they must be such that general propositions about 
these Kinds of objects shall be possible; — is it a neces- 
sary result of the Idea of Kind '? And if so, can the 
Idea of Kind, thus implying the use of language, and 
a condition depending on the use of language, be an 
Idea in the Divine as well as in the human mind? 
Can it be, in this respect, like the Ideas vv^hich we 
have already considered, Space and Time, Force and 
Matter? 

We cannot suppose that the Ideas which exist in 
the Divine Mind imply, in the Supreme Intelligence, 
the need of language, like human language. But 
there is no incongruity in supposing that they imply 
that which we take as the condition of such language 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 367 

as we speak of, namely, distinct thought. There is 
nothing incongruous in supposing that the Supreme 
Intelligence regards the objects which exist in the 
universe as distinct in Kind : and that the Idea of 
Kind in the human mind agrees witli the Idea of 
Kind in the Di^dne Mind, as far as it goes. And as 
we have seen, the Idea of Properties is correlative and 
coexistent with the Idea of Kind, so that the one 
changing, the other changes also. There is nothing 
incongruous in supposing that the Divine Mind mani- 
fests in the universe of which it is the Cause and 
Foundation, these two, its co-ordinate Ideas : and that 
the human mind sees that these two Ideas are co-ordi- 
nate and coexistent, in virtue of its participating in 
these Ideas of the Divine Mind. The universe is full 
of things which man perceives do and must differ cor- 
respondingly in kind and in properties j and this is so, 
because the Ideas of various Kinds and various Pro- 
perties are part of the scheme of the universe in the 
Divine Mind. 

2 3 . That the Ideas of Kinds and Properties as co- 
ordinate and interdependent, though common, to a cer- 
tain extent, to the human and the Divine Mind, are 
immeasurably more luminous, penetrating and compre- 
hensive in the Divine than in the human mind, is 
abundantly evident. In fact, though man assents to 
such axioms as these, — that the Properties of Tilings 
depend upon their Kinds, and that the Kinds of 
Things are determined by their Properties, — yet the 
nature of connexion of Kinds and Properties is a mat- 
ter in which man's mind is all but wholly dark, and 
on which the Divine Mind must be j^erfectly clear. 
Por in how few cases — if indeed in any one — can we 
know what is the essence of any Kind ; — what is the 
real nature of the connexion between the character of 
the Kind and its Properties ! Yet on this point we must 
suppose that the Divine Intellect, which is the foun- 
dation of the world, is perfectly clear. Every Kind of 
thing, every genus and species of object, appears to Him 
in its essential character, and its properties follow as 
necessary consequences. He sees the essences of things 



r 




i 



368 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

through all time and through all space j while we, 
slowly and painfully, by observation and experiment, 
which we cannot idealize or can idealize only in the 
most fragmentary manner, make out a few of the pro- 
perties of each Kind of thing. Our Science here is 
but a drop in the ocean of that truth, which is known 
to the Divine Mind but kept back from us; but still, 
that we can know and do know anything, arises from 
our taking hold of that principle, human as well as 
Divine, that there are differences of Kinds of things, 
and corresponding differences of their properties. 

22. (Idea of Substance.) — I shall not attempt to 
enumerate all the Ideas which, being thus a part of the 
foundation of Science in the human mind and of Ex- 
istence in the universe, are shown to be at the same 
time Ideas in the Divine and in the human mind. But 
there is one other of which the necessary and universal 
application is so uncontested, that it may well serve 
further to exemplify our doctrine. In all reasonings 
concerning the composition and resolution of the ele- 
ments of bodies, it is assumed that the quantity of 
matter cannot be increased or diminished by anything 
which we can do to them. We have an Idea of Sub- 
stance, as something which may have its qualities 
altered by our operations upon it, but cannot have its 
quantity changed. And this Idea of Substance is uni- 
versally verified in the facts of observation and experi- 
ment. Indeed it cannot fail to be so; for it regulates 
and determines the way in which we interpret the facts 
of observation and experiment. It authorized the phi- 
losopher who was asked the weight of a column of 
smoke to reply, "Subtract the weight of the ashes 
from that of the fuel, and you have the weight of the 
smoke:" for in virtue of that idea we assume that, in 
combustion, or in any other operation, all the sub- 
stance which is subjected to the ojDeration must exist 
in the result in some form or other. Now why may 
we reasonably make this assumption, and thus, as it 
were, prescribe laws to the universe'? Our reply is. 
Because Substance is one of the Ideas according to 
which the universe is constituted. The material things 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 369 

"whicli make up the universe are substance according 
to this Idea. They are substance according to this 
Idea in the Divine Mind, and they are substance ac- 
cording to this Idea in the human mind, because the 
human mind has this Idea, to a certain extent, in com- 
mon with the Divine Mind. In this, as in the other 
cases, the Idea must be immeasurably more clear and 
comprehensive in the Divine Mind than in the human. 
The human Idea of substance is full of difficulty and 
perplexity: as for instance; how a substance can as- 
sume successively a solid, fluid and airy form; how two 
substances can be combined so as entirely to penetrate 
one another and have new qualities: and the like. 
All these perplexities and difficulties we must suppose 
to vanish in the Divine Idea of Substance. But still 
there remains in the human, as in the Divine Idea, 
the source and root of the universal truth, that though 
substances may be combined or separated or changed 
in form in the processes of nature or of art, no portion 
of substance can come into being or cease to be. 

23. {Idea of Final Cause.) — There is yet one other 
Idea which I shall mention, though it is one about which 
difficulties have been raised, since the consideration of 
such difficulties may be instructive : the Idea of a pur- 
pose, or as it is often termed, a Final Cause, in organized 
bodies. It has been held, and rightly^, that the as- 
sumption of a Final Cause of each part of animals and 
plants is as inevitable as the assumption of an efficient 
cause of every event. The maxim, that in organized 
bodies nothing is in vain, is as necessarily true as the 
maxim that nothing happens hy chance. I have else- 
where^ shown fully that this Idea is not deduced from 
any special facts, but is assumed as a law governing all 
facts in organic nature, directing the researches and in- 
terpreting the observations of physiologists, I have also 
remarked that it is not at variance with that other law, 
that plants and that animals are constructed upon gene- 
ral plans, of which plans, it may be, we do not see the 



2 Nov. Org. Ren. Aph. CT. » H-ist. Sc. Id. b. ix. c. vL 

B B 



i 



370 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

necessity, thougli we see how wide is their generality. 
This Idea of a purpose, — of a Final Cause, — then, thus 
supplied by our minds, is found to be applicable 
throughout the organic world. It is in virtue of this 
Idea that we conceive animals and plants as subject to 
disease; for disease takes place when the parts do not 
fully answer their purpose; when they do not do what 
they ought to do. How is it then that we thus find 
an Idea which is supplied by our own minds, but which 
is exemplified in every part of the organic world 1 Here 
perhaps the answer will be readily allowed. It is be- 
cause this Idea is an Idea of the Divine Mind. There 
is a Final Cause in the constitution of these parts of 
the universe, and therefore we can interpret them by 
means of the Idea of Final Cause. We can see a pur- 
pose, because there is a purpose. Is it too presump- 
tuous to suppose that we can thus enter into the Ends 
and Purposes of the Divine Mind*? We willingly 
grant and declare that it would be presumptuous to 
suppose that we can enter into them to any but a very 
small degree. They doubtless go immeasurably beyond 
our mode of understanding or conceiving them. But to 
a certain extent we can go. We can go so far as to see 
that they are Ends and Purposes. It is 7iot a vain pre- 
sumption in us to suppose that we know that the eye 
was made for seeing and the ear for hearing. In this 
the most pious of men see nothing impious : the most 
cautious philosophers see nothing rash. And that we 
can see thus far into the designs of the Divine Mind, 
arises, we hold, from this :— that we have an Idea of 
Design and of Purpose which, so far as it is merely 
that, is true ; and so far, is Design and Purpose in the 
same sense in the one case and in the other. 

I am very far from having exhausted the list of 
Fundamental Ideas which the human mind possesses 
and which have been made the foundations of Sciences. 
Of all such Ideas, I might go on to remark, that they 
are of universal validity and application in the region 
of external Facts. In all the cases I might go on to 
inquire. How is it that man's Ideas, developed in his 
internal world, are found to coincide universally with 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 37 1 

the laws of the external world? By what necessity, 
on what ground does this happen? And in all cases 
I should have had to reply, that this happens, and must 
happen, because these Ideas of the human mind are 
also Ideas of the Divine Mind according to which the 
universe is constituted. Man has these thoughts, and 
sees them verified in the universe, because God had 
these thoughts and exemplifies them in the universe. 

24. {Human immeasurably inferior to Divine). — But 
of all these Ideas, I should also have to remark, that 
the way in which man possesses them is immeasurably 
obscure and limited in comparison with the way in 
which God must be supposed to possess them. These 
human Ideas, though clear and real as far as they go, 
in every case run into obscurity and perplexity, from 
which the Ideas of the Divine Mind must be supposed 
to be free. In every case, man, by following the train 
of thought involved in each Idea, runs into confusion 
and seeming contradictions. It may be that by think- 
ing more and more, and by more and more studying 
the universe, he may remove some of this confusion 
and solve some of these contradictions. But when he 
has done in this way all that he can, an immeasurable 
region of confusion and contradiction will still remain ; 
nor can he ever hope to advance very far, in dispelling 
the darkness which hangs over the greater part of the 
universe. His knowledge, his science, his Ideas, ex- 
tend only so far as he can keep his footing in the 
shallow waters which lie on the shore of the vast 
ocean of unfathomable truth. 

25. But further, we have not, even so, exhausted 
our estimate of the immeasurable distance between 
the human mind and the Divine Mind : — very far from 
it : we have only spoken of the smallest portion of the 
region of truth, — that about which we have Sciences 
and Scientific Ideas. In that region alone do we claim 
for man the possession of Ideas the clearness of which 
has in it something divine. But how narrow is the 
province of Science compared with the whole domain 
of human thought ! We may enumerate the sciences 
of which we have been speaking, and which involve 

BB 2 



» 



i 



372 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

such Ideas as I have mentioned. How many are theyl 
Geometry, Arithmetic, Chemistry, Classification, Phy- 
siology. To these we might have added a few others ; 
as the sciences which deal with Light, Heat, Polari- 
ties; Geology and the other Palsetiological Sciences; 
and there our enumeration at present must stop. For 
we can hardly as yet claim to have Sciences, in the 
rigorous sense in which we use the term, about the 
Vital Powers of man, his Mental Powers, kis historical 
attributes, as Language, Society, Arts, Law, and the 
like. On these subjects few philosophers will pretend 
to exhibit to us Ideas of universal validity, prevailing 
through all the range of observation. Yet all these 
things proceed according to Ideas in the Divine Mind 
by which the universe, and by which man, is consti- 
tuted. In such provinces of knowledge, at least, we 
have no difficulty in seeing or allowing how blind 
man is with regard to their fundamental and consti- 
tuent principles; how weak his reason; how limited 
his view. If on some of the plainest portions of pos- 
sible knowledge, man have Ideas which may be regarded 
as coincident to a certain extent with those by which 
the universe is really constituted; still on by far the 
largest portion of the things which most concern him, 
he has no knowledge but that which he derives from 
experience, and which he cannot put in so general a 
form as to have any pretensions to rest it upon a 
foundation of connate Ideas. 

26. (Science advances towards the Divine Ideas.) — 
But there is yet one remark tending somewhat in the 
opposite direction, which I must make, as a part of 
the view which I wish to present. Science, in the 
rigorous sense of the term, involves, we have said, 
Ideas which to a certain extent agree with the Ideas 
of the Divine Mind. But science in that sense is pro- 
gressive; new sciences are formed and old sciences 
extended. Hence it follows that the Ideas which man 
has, and which agree with the Ideas of the Divine 
Mind, may receive additions to their number from 
time to time. This may seem a bold assertion; yet 
this is what, with due restriction, we conceive to be 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 373 

true. Sucli Ideas as we have spoken of receive addi- 
tions, in respect of their manifestation and develop- 
ment. The Ideas, the germ of them at least, were in 
the human mind before ; but by the progress of scien- 
tific thought they are unfolded into clearness and dis- 
tinctness. That this takes place with regard to scion- 
tific Ideas, the history of science abundantly stows. 
The Ideas of Space and Time indeed, were dees and 
distinct from the first, and accordingly the Sciences of 
Geometry and Arithmetic have existed from the ear- 
liest times of man's intellectual history. Bu the Ideas 
upon which the Science of Mechanics depe ids, having 
been obscure in the ancient world, are become clear in 
modern times. The Ideas of Composition and Keso- 
lution have only in recent centuries become so clear 
as to be the basis of a definite science. The Idea of 
Substance indeed was always assumed, though vaguely 
applied by the ancients; and the Idea of a Design or 
End in vital structures is at least as old as Socrates. 
But the Idea of Polarities was never put forth in a 
distinct form till quite recently; and the Idea of Suc- 
cessive Causation, as applied in Geology and in the 
other Palaetiological Sciences, was never scientifically 
applied till modern times: and without attempting 
to prove the point by enumeration, it will hardly be 
doubted that many Scientific Ideas are clear and dis- 
tinct among modern men of science which were not so 
in the ancient days. 

Now all such scientific Ideas are, as I have been 
urging, points on which the human mind is a reflex of 
the Divine Mind. And therefore in the progress of 
science, we obtain, not indeed new points where the 
human mind reflects the Divine, but new points where 
this reflection is clear and luminous. We do not assert 
that the progress of science can bring into existence 
new elements of truth in the human mind, but it may 
bring them into view. It cannot add to the characters 
of Divine origin in the human mind, but it may add 
to or unfold the proofs of such an origin. And this is 
what we conceive it does. And though we do not con- 
ceive that the Ideas which science thus brings into 



m 



fm 



374 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

view are the most important of man's tliouglits in 
other respects, yet they may, and we conceive do, sup- 
ply a proof of the Divine nature of the human mind, 
which proof is of peculiar cogency. What other proofs 
may be collected from other trains of human thought, 
we shall hereafter consider. 

2,7. (Recapitulation.) — This, then, is the argument to 
which we have been led by the survey of the sciences in 
which we have been engaged : — That the human mind 
can and does put forth, out of its natural stores, duly 
unfolded, certain Ideas as the bases of scientific truths : 
These Iders are universally and constantly verified in 
the universe: And the reason of this is, that they 
agree with the Ideas of the Divine Mind according to 
which the universe is constituted aud sustained : The 
human mind has thus in it an element of resemblance 
to the Divine Mind : To a certain extent it looks 
upon the universe as the Divine Mind does ; and there- 
fore it is that it can see a portion of the truth : And 
not only can the human mind thus see a portion of the 
truth, as the Divine Mind sees it: but this portion, 
though at present immeasurably small, and certain 
to be always immeasurably small compared with the 
whole extent of truth which with greater intellectual 
powers, he might discern, nevertheless may increase 
from age to age. 

This is then, I conceive, one of the results of the 
progress of scientific discovery — the Theological Result 
of the Philosophy of Discovery, as it may, I think, not 
unfitly be called: — That by every step in such dis- 
covery by which external facts assume the aspect of 
necessary consequences of our Ideas, we obtain a fresh 
proof of the Divine nature of the human mind : And 
though these steps, however far we may go in this 
path, can carry us only a very little way in the know- 
ledge of the universe, yet that such knowledge, so far 
as we do obtain it, is Divine in its kind, and shows 
that the human mind has something Divine in its 
nature. 

The progress by which external facts assume the 
aspect of necessary consequences of our Ideas, we have 



ITS THEOLOGICAL BEARING. 375 

termed the idealization of facts; and in this sense we 
have said, that the progress of science consists in the 
Idealization of Facts. But there is another way in 
which the operation of man's mind may be considered — 
an opposite view of the identification of Ideas with 
Facts ; which we must consider, in order to complete our 
view of the bearing of the progress of human thought 
upon the nature of man. 






<. 



CHAPTEE XXXI. 

Man's Knowledge of God. 



I. 1% /TAN'S powers and means of knowledge are so 
xVJL limited and imperfect that lie can know little 
concerning God. It is well that men in their theo- 
logical speculations should recollect that it is so, and 
should pursue all such speculations in a modest and 
humble spirit. 

But this humility and modesty defeat their own 
ends, when they lead us to think that we can know 
nothing concerning God : for to be modest and humble 
in dealing with this subject, implies that we know this, 
at least, that God is a proper object of modest and 
humble thought. 

2. Some philosophers have been led, however, by 
an examination of man's faculties and of the nature of 
being, to the conclusion that man can know nothing 
concerning God. But we may very reasonably doabt 
the truth of this conclusion. We may ask. How can 
we know that we can know nothing ? ^^ If we can know 
nothing, we cannot even know that. 

It is much more reasonable to begin with things 
that we really do know, and to examine how far such 
knowledge can carry us, respecting God, as well as 
anything else. This is the course which we have been 
following, and its results are very far from being 
trifling or unimportant. 

In thus beginning from what we know, we start 
from two points, on each of which we have, we con- 
ceive, some real and sure knowledge : — namely, mathe- 
matical and physical knowledge of the universe with- 
out us; and a knowledge of our own moral and per- 
sonal nature within us. 



man's knowledge of god. 377 

3. {From Nature ive learn something of God.) — In 
pursuing the first line of thought, we are led to reason 
thus. The universe is governed by certain Ideas : for 
instance, everything which exists and happens in the 
universe, exists and happens rsr Space and Time. "Why 
is this? It is, we conceive, because God has consti- 
tuted and constitutes the universe so that it may be 
so ; that is, because the Ideas of Space and of Time are 
Ideas according to which God has established and up- 
holds the universe. 

But we may proceed further in this way, as we have 
already said. The universe not only exists in space 
and time, but it has in it substances — material sub- 
stances : or taking it collectively. Material Substance. 
Can we know anything concerning this substance? 
Yes : something we can know ; for we know that ma- 
terial substance cannot be brought into being or anni- 
hilated by any natural process. We have then an Idea 
of Substance which is a Law of the universe. How is 
this? — We reply, that it is because our Idea of Sub- 
stance is an Idea on which God has established and 
upholds the universe. 

Can we proceed further still? Can we discern any 
other Ideas according to which the universe is consti- 
tuted? Yes: as we have already remarked, we can 
discern several, though as we go on from one to an- 
other they become gradually fainter in their light, less 
cogent in their necessity. We can see that Force as 
well as Material Substance is an Idea on which the 
universe is constituted, and that Force and Matter are 
a necessary and universal antithesis : we can see that 
the Things which occupy the universe must be of defi- 
nite Kinds, in order that an intelligent mind may 
occupy itself about them, and thus that the Idea of 
Kind is a constitutive Idea of the universe. We can 
see that some kinds of things have life, and our Idea 
of Life is, that every part of a living thing is a means 
to an Endj and thus we recognize End, or Final 
Cause, as an Idea which prevails throughout the uni- 
verse, and we recognize this Idea as an Idea according 
to which God constitutes and upholds the universe. 




< 



37^ PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

Since we know so much concerning the universe, 
and since every Law of the universe which is a ne- 
cessary form of thought about the universe must 
exist in the Divine Mind, in order that it may find 
a place in ou7' minds, how can we say that we can 
know nothing concerning the Divine Mind? 

4. {Though hut Little.^ — But on the other hand, we 
easily see how little our knowledge is, compared with 
what we do not know. Even the parts of our know- 
ledge which are the clearest are full of perplexities; 
and of the Laws of the universe, including living 
as well as lifeless things, how small a portion do we 
know at all ! 

Even the parts of our knowledge which are the clear- 
est, I say, are full of perplexities. Infinite Space and 
an infinite Past, an infinite Future, — how helplessly 
our reason struggles with these aspects of our Ideas ! 
And with regard to Substance, how did ingenerable and 
indestructible substance come into being 1 And with 
regard to Matter, how can passive Matter be endued 
with living force ? And with regard to Kinds, how 
immeasurably beyond our power of knowing are their 
numbers and their outward differences : stiL more their 
internal differences and central essence ! And with 
regard to the Design which we see in the organs of 
living things, though we can confidently say we see it, 
how obscurely is it shown, and how much is our view 
of it disturbed by other Laws and Analogies ! And 
the Life of things, the end to which such Design tends, 
how full of impenetrable mysteries is it ! or rather how 
entirely a mass of mystery into which our powers of 
knowledge strive in vain to penetrate ! 

There is therefore no danger that by following this 
train of thought we should elevate our view of man too 
high, or bring down God in our thoughts to the like- 
ness of man. Even if we were to suppose the Idea of 
the Divine Mind to be of the same kind as the Ideas 
of the human mind, the very few Ideas of this kind, 
which man possesses, compared with the whole range 
of the universe, and the scanty length to which he can 
follow each, make his knowledge so small and imper- 



MAN S KNOWLEDGE OF GOD. 379 

feet, that he has abundant reason to be modest and 
humble in his contemplations concerning the Intelli- 
gence that knows all and constitutes all. He can, as 
I have already said, wade but a few steps into the 
margin of the boundless and unfathomable ocean of 
truth. 

5. But the Ideas of the Divine Mind must necessarily 
be different in kind, as well as in number and extent, 
from the Ideas of the human mind, on this very account, 
that they are comj)lete and perfect. The Mind which 
can conceive all the parts and laws of the universe in 
all their mutual bearings, fundamental reasons, and 
remote consequences, must be different in kind, as 
well as in extent, from the mind which can only trace a 
few of these parts, and see these laws in a few of their 
aspects, and cannot sound the whole depth of any of 
them. The Divine Mind differs from the human, in 
the way in which we must needs suppose what is Di- 
vine to differ from what is human. 

6. It has sometimes been said that the Divine Mind 
differs from the human as the Infinite from the finite. 
And this has been given as a reason why we cannot 
know anything concerning God; for we cannot, it is 
said, know anything concerning the Infinite. Our 
conception of the Infinite being merely negative, (the 
negation of a limit,) makes all knowledge about it im- 
possible. But this is not truly said. Our conception 
of the Infinite is not merely negative. As I have 
elsewhere remarked, our conception of the Infinite is 
positive in this way : — that in order to form this con- 
ception, we begin to follow a given Idea in a given 
direction; and then, having thus begun, we suppose 
that the progress of thought goes on in that direction 
without limit. To arrive at our Idea of infinite space, 
for example, we must determine what kind of space 
we mean, — line, area or solid; and from what origin 
we begin: and infinite space has different attributes 
as we take different beginnings in this way. 

And so with regard to the kinds of infinity (for 
there are many) which belong to the Divine Mind. 
We have a few Ideas which represent the Laws of tho 




L 



380 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

universe : — as Space, Time, Substance, Force, Matter, 
Kind, End ; of suck, Ideas the Divine Mind may have 
an infinite number. These Ideas in the human mind 
are limited in depth and clearness : in the Divine Mind 
they must be infinitely clearer than the clearest human 
Intuition; infinitely more profound than the profound- 
est human thought. And in this way, and, as we shall 
see, in other ways also, the Divine Mind infinitely 
transcends the human mind when most fully instructed 
and unfolded. 

In this way and in other ways also, I say. For we 
have hitherto spoken of the human mind only as con- 
templating the external world; — as discerning, to a cer- 
tain small extent, the laws of the universe. We have 
spoken of the world of things without : we must now 
speak of the world within us ; — of the world of our 
thoughts, our being, our moral and personal being. 

7. (From ourselves we learn something concerning 
God.) — We must speak of this : for this is, as I have 
said, another starting point and another line in which 
we may proceed from what we know, and see how far 
our knowledge carries us, and how far it teaches us 
anything concerning God. 

Looking at ourselves, we perceive that we have to 
act, as well as to contemplate: we are practical as 
well as speculative beings. And tracing the nature 
and conditions of our actions, in the depths of our 
thought we find that there is in the aspect of actions 
a supreme and inevitable distinction of right and 
wrong. We cannot help judging of our actions as 
right and wrong. We acknowledge that there must 
be such a judgment appropriate to them. We have 
these Ideas oi right and wrong as attributes of actions ; 
and thus we are moral beings. 

8. And again : the actions are our actions. We 
act in this way or that. And we are not mere things^ 
which move and change as they are acted on, but which 
do not themselves act, as man acts. I am not a Thing 
but a Person; and the men with whom I act, who act 
with me — act in various ways towards me, well or ill 
— are also persons. Man is a personal being. 



man's knowledge of god. 381 

The Ideas of right and wrong — the moral Ideas of 
man — are then a part of the scheme of the universe to 
which man belongs. Could thej be this, if they were 
not also a part of the nature of that Divine Mind 
which constitutes the universe 1 — It would seem not : 
the Moral Law of the universe must be a Law of the 
Divine Mind, in order that it may be a Law felt and 
discerned by man. 

9. {Objection answered.) — But, it may be objected, 
the Moral Law of the universe is a Law in a different 
sense from the Laws of the universe of which we spoke 
before — the mathematical and physical laws of the 
universe. Those were laws according to which things 
are, and events occur: but Moral Laws are Laws ac- 
cording to which men ought to act, and according to 
which actions ought to be. There is a difference, so 
that we cannot reason from the human to the Divine 
Mind in the same manner in this case as in the other. 

True : we cannot reason in the same manner. But 
we can reason still more confidently. For the Law 
directing what ought to he is the Supreme Law, and 
the mind which constitutes the Supreme Law is the 
Supreme Mind, that is, the Divine Mind. 

10. That the Moral Law is not verified among men 
in fact, is not a ground for doubting that it is a Law 
of the Divine Mind j but it is a ground for inquiring 
what consequences the Divine Mind has annexed to 
the violation of the Law; and in what manner the 
supremacy of the Law will be established in the total 
course of the history of the universe, including, it may 
be, the history of other worlds than that in which we 
now live. 

Considering how dimly and imperfectly we see what 
consequences the Divine Governor has annexed to the 
violation of the Moral Law, He who sees all these 
consequences and has provided for the establishment 
of His Law in the whole history of the human race, 
must be supposed to be infinitely elevated above man 
in wisdom ; — more even in virtue of this aspect of His 
nature, than in virtue of that which is derived from 
the contemplation of the universe. 



382 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 






1 1. Man is a person; and his personality is his high- 
est attribute, or at least, that which makes all his highest 
attributes possible. And the highest attribute which 
belongs to the finite minds which exist in the universe 
must exist also in the Infinite Mind which constitutes 
the universe as it is. The Divine Mind must reside 
in a Divine Person. And as man, by his personality, 
acts in obedience to or in transgression of a moral 
law, so God, by His Personality, acts in establishing 
the Law and in securing its supremacy in the whole 
history of the world. 

12. (^Creation.) — Acknowledging a Divine Mind 
which is the foundation and support of the world as it 
is, constituting and upholding its laws, it may be asked, 
Does this view point to a beginning of the world? 
Was there a time when the Divine Mind called into 
being the world, before non-existent? Was there a 
Creation of the world ? 

I do not think that an answer to this question, 
given either way, affects the argument which I have 
been urging. The Laws of the Universe discoverable 
by the human mind, are the Laws of the Divine 
Mind, whether or not there was a time when these 
Laws first came into operation, or first produced the 
world which we see. The argument respecting the 
nature of the Divine Mind is the same, whether or 
not we suppose a Creation. 

But, in point of fact, every part of our knowledge 
of the Universe does seem to point to a beginning. 
Every part of the world has been, so far as we can 
see, formed by natural causes out of some tiling differ- 
ent from what it now is. The Earth, with its lands 
and seas, teeming with innumerable forms of living 
things, has been produced from an earth formed of 
other lands and seas, occupied with quite different 
forms of life : and if we go far enough back, from an 
earth in which there was no life. The stars which we 
C'diW fixed move and change; the nebulae in their shape 
show that they too are moving and changing. The 
Earth was, some at least hold, produced by the con- 
densation of a nebula. The history of man, as well 



man's knowledge of god. 383 

as of others of its inliabitants, points to a beginning. 
Languages, Arts, Governments, Histories, all seem to 
have begun from a starting-point, however remote. 
Indeed not only a beginning, but a beginning at no 
remote period, appears to be indicated by most of the 
sciences which carry us backwards in the world's his- 
tory. 

But we must allow, on the other hand, that though 
all such lines of research point towards a beginning, 
none of them can be followed up to a beginning. All 
the lines converge, but all melt away before they reach 
the point of convergence. As I have elsewhere said\ 
in no science has man been able to arrive at a begin- 
ning which is homogeneous with the known course of 
events, though we can often go very far back, and 
limit the hypotheses respecting the origin. We have, 
in the impossibility of thus coming to any conclusion 
by natural reason on the subject of creation, another 
evidence of the infinitely limited nature of the human 
mind, when compared with the Creative or Constitu- 
tive Divine Mind. 

13. {End of the World.) — But if our natural reason, 
aided by all that science can teach, can tell us nothing 
respecting the origin and beginning of this world, still 
less can reason tell us anything with regard to the 
End of this world. On this subject, the natural 
sciences are even more barren of instruction than on 
the subject of Creation. Yet we may say that as the 
Constitution of the Universe, and its conformity to a 
Collection of eternal and immutable Ideas as its ele- 
ments, are not inconsistent with the supposition of a 
Beginning of the present course of the world, so nei- 
ther are they inconsistent with the supposition of an 
End. Indeed it would not be at all impossible that 
physical inquiries should present the prospect of an 
End, even more clearly than they afford the retrospect 
of a Beginning. If, for instance, it should be found 
that the planets move in a resisting medium which 



1 Hist. Ind. Sc. b. xviiL c. vL sect. 5. 




.) 



384 PHILOSOPHY OP DISCOVERT. 

constantly retards their velocity, and must finally 
make them fall in upon the central sun, there "would 
be an end of the earth as to its present state. "We can- 
not therefore, on the grounds of Science, deny either a 
Beginning or an End of the present world. 

1 4. But here another order of considerations comes 
into play, namely, those derived from moral and theo- 
logical views of the world. On these we must, in con- 
clusion, say a few words. 

It is very plain that these considerations may lead 
us to believe in a view of the Beginning, Middle, and 
End of the history of the world, very different from 
anything which the mere physical and natural sciences 
can disclose to us. And these expressions to which I 
have been led, the Beginning, the Middle, and the 
End of the world's history according to theological 
views, are full of suggestions of the highest interest. 
But the interest which belongs to these suggestions is 
of a solemn and peculiar kind ; and the considerations 
to which such suggestions point are better, I think, 
kept apart from such speculations as those with which 
I have been concerned in the present volume. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 
Analogies op Physical and Religious Phiix)SOPHY. 



I. A NY assertion of analogy between physical and 
jljl religious pliilosophy will very properly be 
looked upon with great jealousy as likely to be forced 
and delusive; and it is only in its most general aspects 
that a sound philosophy on the two subjects can offer 
any points of resemblance. But in some of its general 
conditions the discovery of truth in the one field of 
knowledge and in the other may offer certain analo- 
gies, as well as differences, which it may be instructive 
to notice; and to some such aspects of our philosophy 
I shall venture to refer. 

For the physical sciences — the sciences of observa- 
tion and speculation — ^the progress of our exact and 
scientific knowledge, as I have repeatedly said, con- 
sists in reducing the objects and events of the universe 
to a conformity with Ideas which we have in our own 
minds : — the Ideas, for instance, of Space, Force, Sub- 
stance, and the like. In this sense, the intellectual 
progress of men consists in the Idealization of Facts. 

2. In moral subjects, on the other hand, where 
man has not merely to observe and speculate, but also 
to act; — where he does not passively leave the facts 
and events of the world such as they are, but tries 
actively to alter them and to improve the existing 
state of things, his progress consists in doing this. He 
makes a moral advance when he succeeds in doing 
what he thus attempts : — when he really improves the 
state of things with which he has to do by remo^dng 
evil and producing good: — ^when he makes the state 
of things, namely, the relations between him and other 
persons, his acts and their acts, conform more and 

cc 




:) 



I 



386 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

more to Ideas wMcli lie lias in his own mind: — 
namely, to tlie Ideas of Justice, Benevolence, and the 
like. His moral progress thus consists in the realiza- 
tion of Ideas. 

And thus we are led to the Aphorism, as we may 
call it, that Mans Intellectual Progress consists in the 
Idealization of Facts, and his Moral Progress consists 
in the Realization of Ideas. 

3. But further, though that progress of science 
which consists in the idealization of facts may be 
carried through several stages, and indeed, in the his- 
tory of science, has been carried through many stages, 
yet it is, and ahvays must be, a progress exceedingly 
imperfect and incomplete, when compared with the 
completeness to which its nature points. Only a few 
sciences have made much progress; none are com- 
plete; most have advanced only a step or two. In 
none have we reduced all the Facts to Ideas. In 
all or almost all the unreduced Tacts are far more 
numerous and extensive than those which have been 
reduced. The general mass of the facts of the uni- 
verse are mere facts, unsubdued to the rule of science. 
The Facts are not Idealized. The intellectual pro- 
gress is miserably scanty and imperfect, and would be 
so, even if it were carried much further than it is 
carried. How can we hope that it will ever approach 
to completeness 1 

4. And in like manner, the moral progress of man 
is still more miserably scanty and incomplete. In 
how small a degree has he in this sense realized his 
Ideas! In how small a degree has he carried into 
real effect, and embodied in the relations of society, in 
his own acts and in those of others with whom he is 
concerned, the Ideas of Justice and Benevolence and 
the like ! How far from a complete realization of such 
moral Ideas are the acts of the best men, and the rela- 
tions of the best forms of society ! How far from per- 
fection in these respects is man! and how certain it 
is that he will always be very far from perfection! 
Far below even such perfection as he can conceive, he 
will always be in his acts and feelings. The moral 



PHYSICAL A^'D RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 387 

progress of man, of each man, and of each society, is, 
as I have said, miserably scanty and incomplete ; and 
when regarded as the realization of his moral Ideas, 
its scantiness and incompleteness become still more 
manifest than before. 

Hence "we are led to another Aphorism: — that 
Tnan^s jrrogi^ess in tlie realization of Moral Ideas, and 
his progress in the Scientific idealization of Facts, are, 
and always will he, exceedingly scanty and incomplete. 

5. But there is another aspect of Ideas, both phy- 
sical and moral, in which this scantiness and incom- 
pleteness vanish. In the Divine IMind, all the phy- 
sical Ideas are entertained with comjDlete falness and 
luminousness ; and it is because they are so enter- 
tained in the Divine Mind, and it is because the uni- 
verse is constituted and framed upon them, that we 
find them verified in every part of the universe, when- 
ever we make our observation of facts and deduce 
their laws. 

In like manner the Moral Ideas exist in the Divine 
Mind in complete fulness and luminousness; and we 
are naturally led to believe and expect that they must 
be exemplified in the moral universe, as completely 
and universally as the physical laws are exemplified in 
the physical imi verse. Is this so? or under what con- 
ditions can we conceive this to be? 

6. In answering this question, we must consider 
how far the moral, still more even than the physical 
Ideas of the Divine Mind, are elevated above our 
human Ideas; but yet not so far as to have no resem- 
blance to our corresponding human Ideas; for if this 
were so, we could not reason about them at all. 

In speaking of man's moral Ideas, Benevolence, 
Justice, and the like, we speak of them as belonging 
to man's Soul, rather than to his Mind, which we have 
commonly spoken of as the seat of his physical Ideas. 
A distinction is thus often made between the intel- 
lectual and the moral faculties of man; but on this 
distinction we here lay no stress. We may speak of 
man's Mind and Soul, meaning that part of his being 
in which are all his Ideas, intellectual and moral. 

c c 2 



i 



388 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

And now let us consider the question which has 
just been asked : — ^how we can conceive the Divine 
Benevolence and Justice to be completely and univer- 
sally realized in the moral world, as the Ideas of 
Space, Time, &c. are in the physical world ? 

7. Our Ideas of Benevolence, Justice, and of other 
Virtues, may be elevated above their original narrow- 
ness, and purified from their original coarseness, by moral 
culture; as our Ideas of Force and Matter, of Sub- 
stance and Elements, and the like, may be made clear 
and convincing by philosophical and scientific culture. 
This appears, in some degree, in the history of moral 
terms, as the progress of clearness and efficacy in the 
Idea of the material sciences appears in the history of 
the terms belonging to such sciences. Thus among 
the Romans, while they confined their kindly afiections 
within their own class, a stranger was universally an 
enemy; j:)ere^rmz*s was synonymous with hostis. But 
at a later period, they regarded all men as having a 
claim on their kindness; and he who felt and acted on 
this claim was called humane. This meaning of the 
woi'd humanity shows the progress (in their Ideas at 
least) of the virtue which the word humanity desig- 
nates. 

8. And as man can thus rise to a point of view 
where he sees that man is to be loved as man, so the 
humane and loving man inevitably assumes that God 
loves all men; and thus assumes that there is, or may 
be, a love of man in man's heart, which represents and 
resembles in kind, however remote in degree, the love 
of God to man. 

But as in man's love of man there are very widely 
difierent stages, rising from the narrow love of a savage 
to his family or his tribe, to the widest and warmest 
feelings of the most enlightened and loving universal 
philanthropist; — so must we suppose that there are 
stages immeasurably wider by which God's love of 
man is more comprehensive and more tender than any 
love of man for man. Tlie religious philosopher will 
fully assent to the expressions of this conviction de- 
livered by pious men in all ages. " The eternal God is 



PHYSICAL AND RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 389 

thy refuge, and beneath thee are the everlasting arms." 
"When my father and my mother forsake me the Lord 
taketh me up," is the expression of Divine Love, con- 
sistent with philosophy as well as with revelation. But 
as the Divine Love is more comprehensive and enduring 
than any human love, so is it in an immeasurably greater 
degree, more enlightened. It is not a love that seeks 
merely the pleasiu-e and gratification of its object; that 
even an enlightened human love does not do. It seeks 
the good of its objects; and such a good as is the great- 
est good, to an Intelligence which can embrace all 
cases, causes, and contingencies. To our limited un- 
derstanding, evil seems often to be inflicted, and the 
good of a part seems inconsistent with the good of an- 
other part. Our attempts to conceive a Supreme and 
complete Good provided for all the creatures which 
exist in the universe, baffle and perplex us, even more 
than our attemjjts to conceive infinite space, infinite 
time, and an infinite chain of causation. But as the 
most careful attention which we can give to the Ideas 
of Space, Time, and Causation convinces us that these 
Ideas are perfectly clear and complete in the Divine 
Mind, and that our perplexity and confusion on these 
subjects arise only from the vast distance between the 
Divine ]\Iind and our human mind, so is it reasonable 
to suppose the same to be the source of the confusion 
which we experience when we attempt to determine 
what most conduces to the good of our fellow-crea- 
tures ; and when, urged by love to them, we endeavour 
to promote this good. We can do little of what Infi- 
nite Love would do, yet are we not thereby dispensed 
from seeking in some degree to imitate the working of 
Divine Love. We can see but little of what Infinite 
Intelligence sees, and this should be one source of con- 
fidence and comfort, when we stumble upon perplexi- 
ties produced by the seeming mixture of good and evil 
in the world. 

9. But when we ask the questions which have already 
been stated : Whether this Infinite Divine Love is real- 
ized in the world, and if so. How : I conceive that we 
are irresistibly impelled to reply to the former question, 






390 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

that it is : and we tlien turn to the latter. We are led 
to assume that there is in God an Infinite Love of 
man, a creature in a certain degree of a Divine nature. 
We must, as a coasequence of this, assume that the 
Love of God to man, necessarily is, in the end, and on 
the whole, completely and fully realized in the history 
of the world. But what is the complete history of the 
world 1 Is it that which consists in the lives of men such 
as we see them between their birth and their death t If 
the minds or souls of men are alive after the death of 
the body, that future life, as well as this present life, 
belongs to the history of the world; — to that provi- 
dential history, of which the totality, as we have said, 
must be governed by Infinite Divine Love. And in 
addition to all other reasons for believing that the 
minds and souls of men do thus survive their present 
life, is this : — that we thus can conceive, what other- 
ivise it is difficult or impossible to conceive, the opera- 
tion of Infinite Love in the whole of the history of 
mankind. If there be a Future State in which men's 
souls are still under the authority and direction of the 
Divine Governor of the world, all that is here wanting 
to complete the scheme of a perfect government of 
Intelligent Love may thus be applied : all seeming and 
partial evil may be absorbed and extinguished in an 
ultimate and universal good. 

10. The Idea of Justice as belonging to God sug- 
gests to us some of the same kind of reflexions as 
those which we have made respecting the Divine Love. 
We believe God to be just: otherwise, as has been 
said. He would not be God. And as we thus, from 
the nature of our minds and souls, believe God to be 
just, we must, in this belief, understand Justice ac- 
cording to the Idea which we have of Justice ; that is, 
in some measure, according to the Idea of Justice, as 
exemplified in human actions and feelings. It would 
be absurd to combine the two propositions, that we 
necessarily believe that God is just, and that by just^ 
we mean something entirely different from the com- 
mon meaning of the word. 

But though the Divine Idea of Justice must nec«s- 



PHYSICAL AND RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 39 1 

sarily, in some measure, coincide with our Idea of 
Justice, we must believe in this, as in other cases, that 
the Divine Idea is immeasurably more profound, com- 
prehensive, and clear, than the human Idea. Even 
the human Idea of Justice is susceptible of many and 
large progressive steps, in the way of clearness, con- 
sistency, and comprehensiveness. In the moral history 
of man this Idea advances from the hard rigour of in- 
flexible written Law to the equitable estimation of the 
real circumstances of each case; it advances also from 
the narrow Law of a single community to a larger Law, 
which includes and solves the conflicts of all such 
Laws. Further, the administration of human Law is 
always imperfect, often erroneous, in consequence of 
man's imperfect knowledge of the facts of each case, 
and still more, from his ignorance of the designs and 
feelings of the actors. If the Judge could see into the 
heart of the person accused, and could himself rise 
higher and higher in judicial wisdom, he might exem- 
plify the Idea of Justice in a far higher degree than 
has ever yet been done. 

I r. But all such advance in the improvement of 
human Justice miist still be supposed to stop immea- 
surably short of the Divine Justice, which must in- 
clude a perfect knowledge of all men's actions, and all 
men's hearts and thoughts; and a universal application 
of the wisest and most comprehensive Laws. And the 
difierence of the Divine and of the human Idea of 
Justice may, like the difierences of other Divine and 
human Ideas, include the solution of all the perplexi- 
ties in which we find ourselves involved when we 
would trace the Idea to all its consequences. The Di- 
vine Idea is immeasurably elevated above the human 
Idea; in the Divine Idea all inconsistency, defect, and 
incompleteness vanish, and Justice includes in its ad- 
ministration every man, without any admixture of in- 
justice. This is what we must conceive of the Divine 
administration, since God is perfectly just. 

12. But here, as before, we have another conclu- 
sion suggested to us. We are, by the considerations 
just now spoken of, led to believe that, in the Divine 




392 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCO VEHT. 

administration of the world is an administration of 
perfect Justice ; — that is, such is the Divine Adminis- 
tration in the end and on the whole, taking into ac- 
count the whole of the providential history of the 
world. But the course of the world, taking into ac- 
count only what happens to man in this present life, 
is not, we may venture to 'say, a complete and entire 
administration of justice. It often happens that in- 
justice is successful and triumphant, even in the end, 
so far as the end is seen here. It happens that wrong 
is done, and is not remedied or punished. It happens 
that blameless and virtuous men are subjected to pain, 
grief, violence, and oppression, and are not protected, 
extricated, or avenged. In the affairs of this world, 
the prevalence of injustice and wrong-doing is so ap- 
parent, as to be a common subject of complaint : and 
though the complaint may be exaggerated, and though 
1 11 a calm and comprehensive view may often discern com- 

pensating and remedial influences which are not visible 
at first sight, still we cannot regard the lot of happiness 
or misery which falls to each man in this world and 
this life as apportioned according to a scheme of per- 
\ feet and universal justice, such as in our thoughts we 

I cannot but require the Divine administration to be. 

J 13. Here then we are again led to the same con- 

viction by regarding the Divine administration of the 
world as the realization of the Divine Justice, to which 
we were before led by regarding it as the realization 
of the Divine Love. Since the Idea is not fully or 
I completely realized in man's life in this present world, 

this present world cannot be the whole of the Divine 
Administration. To complete the realization of the 
Idea of Justice, as an element of the Divine Adminis- 
tration, there must be a life of man after his life in 
this present world. If man's mind and soul, the part 
of him which is susceptible of happiness and misery, 
* survive this present life, and be still subject to the 

I Divine Administration, the Idea of Divine Justice 

may still be completely realized, notwithstanding all 
that here looks like injustice or defective justice ; and 
it belongs to the Idea of Justice to remedy and com- 



i. 



PHYSICAL AND RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 393 

pensate, not to prevent wrong. And thus by this 
supposition of a Future State of man's existence, we 
are enabled to conceive that, in tbe whole of the Di- 
vine Government of the universe, all seeming injustice 
and wrong may be finally corrected and rectified, in an 
ultimate and universal establishment of a reign of per- 
fect Righteousness. 

14. Admitting the view thus presented, we may 
again discern a remarkable analogy between what we 
have called our physical Ideas (those of Space, Time, 
Cause, Substance, and the like), and our moi^al Ideas, 
(those of Benevolence, Justice, &c.) In both classes we 
must suppose that our human Ideas represent, though 
very incompletely and at an immeasurable distance, 
the Divine Ideas. Even our physical Ideas, when pur- 
sued to their consequences, are involved in a perplexity 
and confusion from which the Divine Ideas are free. 
Our Ideas of Benevolence and Justice are still more 
full of imperfections and inconsistency, when we would 
frame them into a complete scheme, and yet from such 
imperfections and inconsistency we must suppose that 
the Divine Benevolence and Justice are exempt. Our 
physical Ideas we find in every case exactly exempli- 
fied and realized in the universe, and we account for 
this by considering that they are the Divine Ideas, on 
which the universe is constituted. Our moral Ideas, 
the Ideas of Benevolence and Justice in particular, 
must also be realized in the universe, as a scheme of 
Divine G-ovemment. But they are not realized in 
the world as constituted of man living this present 
life. The Divine Scheme of the world, therefore, ex- 
tends beyond this present Kfe of man. If we could 
include in our survey the future life as well as the 
present life of man, and the future course of the Di- 
vine Government, we should have a scheme of the 
Moral Government of the universe, in which the Ideas 
of Perfect Benevolence and Perfect Justice are as com- 
pletely and universally exemplified and realized, as the 
Ideas of Space. Time, Cause, Substance, and the like, 
are in the physical universe. 

15. There is one other remark bearing upon this 




I 

) 



t 



394 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

analogy, wliicli seems to deserve our attention. As I 
have said in the last chapter, the scheme of the world, 
as governed by our physical Ideas, seems to point to 
a Beginning of the world, or at least of the present 
course of the world : and if we suppose a Beginning, 
our thoughts naturally turn to an End. But if our 
physical Ideas point to a Beginning and suggest an 
End, do our Ideas of Divine Benevolence and Justice 
in any way lend themselves to this suggestion 1 — 
Perhaps we might venture to say that in some degree 
they do, even to the eye of a mere philosophical reason. 
Perhaps our reason alone might suggest that there 
is a progression in the human race, in various moral 
attributes — in art, in civilization, and even in humanity 
and in justice, which implies a beginning. And that 
at any rate there is nothing inconsistent with our Idea 
of the Divine Government in the supposition that the 
history of this world has a Beginning, a Middle and 
an End. 

1 6. If therefore there should be conveyed to us 
by some channel especially appropriated to the com- 
munication and development of moral and religious 
Ideas, the knowledge that the world, as a scheme of 
Divine Government, has a Beginning, a Middle, and 
an End, of a Kind, or at least, invested with cir- 
cumstances quite different from any which our physi- 
cal Ideas can disclose to us, there would be, in such 
a belief, nothing at all inconsistent with the analogies 
which our philosophy — the philosophy of our Ideas 
illustrated by the whole progress of science — has im- 
pressed upon us. On the grounds of this philosophy, 
we need find no difficulty in believing that as the 
visible universe exhibits the operation of the Divine 
Ideas of Space, Time, Cause, Substance, and the like, 
and discloses to us traces of a Beginning of the pre- 
sent mode of operation, so the moral universe exhibits 
to us the operation of the Divine Benevolence and 
Justice ; and that these Divine attributes wrought in 
a special and peculiar manner in the Beginning ; inter- 
posed in a peculiar and special manner in the Middle ; 
and will again act in a peculiar and special manner in 



PHYSICAL AND RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 395 

the End of the world. And thus the conditions of the 
physical universe, and the Government of the Moral 
world, are both, though in different ways, a part of the 
work which God is carrying on from the Beginning of 
things to the End — opus quod Deus operator a prin- 
ciino usque adjinem. 

17. We are led by such analogies as I have been 
adducing to believe that the whole course of events in 
which the minds and souls of men survive the present 
life, and are hereafter subjected to the Divine govern- 
ment in such a way as to comjjlete all that is here de- 
ficient in the world's history, is a scheme of perfect 
Benevolence and Justice. Now, can we discern in 
man's mind or soul itself any indication of a destiny 
like this % Are there in us any powers and faculties 
which seem as if they were destined to immortality? 
If there be, we have in such faculties a strong confirm- 
ation of that belief in the future life of man which has 
already been suggested to us as necessary to render the 
Divine government conceivable. 

18. According to our philosophy there are powers 
and faculties which do thus seem fitted to endure, and 
not fitted to terminate and be extinguished. The Ideas 
which we have in our minds — the physical Ideas, as 
we have called them, according to which the universe 
is constituted, — agree, as far as they go, with the Ideas 
of the Divine Mind, seen in the constitution of the 
universe. But these Divine Ideas are eternal and im- 
perishable : we therefore naturally conclude that the 
human mind which includes such elements, is also 
eternal and imperishable. Since the mind can take 
hold of eternal truths, it must be itself eternal. Since 
it is, to a certain extent, the image of God in its facul- 
ties, it cannot ever cease to be the image of God. 
When it has arrived at a stage in which it sees several 
aspects of the universe in the same form in which they 
present themselves to the Divine Mind, we cannot 
suppose that the Author of the human mind will allow 
it and all its intellectual light to be extinguished. 

19. And our conviction that this extinction of the 
human mind cannot take place becomes stronger still, 



39^ PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

wlien we consider tliat tte mind, however imperfect 
and scanty its discernment of truth may be, is still 
capable of a vast, and even of an unlimited progress in 
the pursuit and apprehension of truth. The mind is 
capable of accepting and appropriating, through the 
action of its own Ideas, every step in science which 
has ever been made — every step which shall hereafter 
be made. Can we suppose that this vast and bound- 
less capacity exists for a few years only, is unfolded 
only into a few of its simplest consequences, and is 
then consigned to annihilation? Can we suppose that 
the wonderful powers which carry man on, generation 
by generation, from the contemplation of one great 
and striking truth to another, are buried with each 
generation? May we not rather suppose that that 
mind, which is capable of indefinite progression, is 
allowed to exist in an infinite duration, during which 
such progression may take place ? 

20. I propose this argument as a ground of hope 
and satisfactory reflexion to those who love to dwell on 
the natural arguments for the Immortality of the Soul. 
I do not attempt to follow it into detail. I know too 
well how little such a cause can gain by obstinate and 
complicated argumentation, to attempt to urge the 
argument in that manner : and probably difierent per- 
sons, among those who accept the argument as valid, 
would give different answers to many questions of de- 
tail, which naturally arise out of the acceptance of this 
argument. I will not here attempt to solve, or even 
to propound these questions. My main purpose in 
offering these views and this argument at all, is to 
give some satisfaction to those who would think it a 
sad and blank result of this long survey of the nature 
and progress of science in which we have been so long 
engaged (through this series of works), that it should 
in no way lead to a recognition of the Author of that 
world about which our Science is, and to the high and 
consolatory hopes which lift man beyond this world. 
No survey of the universe can be at all satisfactory to 
thoughtful men, which has not a theological bearing; 
jior can any view of man's powers and means of knowr 



PHYSICAL AND RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 397 

ing be congenial to sucli men, wHch does not recognize 
an infinite destination for the mind which has an infi- 
nite capacity; an eternal being of the Faculty which 
can take a steady hold of eternal being. 

21. And as we may derive such a conviction from 
our physical Ideas, so too may we no less from our 
moral Ideas. Our minds apprehend Space and Time 
and Force and the like, as Ideas which are not depen- 
dent on the body; and hence we believe that our minds 
shall not perish with our bodies. And in the same 
manner our souls conceive pure Benevolence and per- 
fect Justice, which go beyond the conditions of this 
mortal life; and hence we believe that our souls have 
to do with a life beyond this mortal life. 

It is more difficult to speak of man's indefinite mo- 
ral progression even than of his indefinite intellectual 
progression. Yet in every path of moral speculation 
we have such a progression suggested to us. We may 
begin, for instance, with the ordinary feelings and 
afiections of our daily nature : — Love, Hate, Scorn. 
But when we would elevate the Soul in our imagina- 
tion, we ascend above these ordinary afiections, and 
take the repulsive and hostile ones as fitted only to 
balance their own influences. And thus the poet, 
speaking of a morally poetical nature, describes it : 

The Poet in a golden clime was born, 

With golden stars above. 
He felt the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, 

The love of love. 

But the loftier moralist can rise higher than this, and 
can, and will, reject altogether Hate and Scorn from 
his view of man's better nature. His description 
would rather be — • 

The good man in a loving clime was bom, 

With loving stars above. 
He felt sorrow for hate, pity for scorn. 

And love of love. 

He would, in his conception of such a character, 
ascribe to it all the virtues which result from the 



*'i 



398 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

control and extinction of tliese repulsive and Hostile 
affections : — the virtues of magnanimity, forgiving- 
ness, unselfishness, self-devotion, tenderness, sweetness. 
And these we can conceive in a higher and higher 
degree, in proportion as our own hearts become tender, 
forgiving, pure and unselfish. And though in every 
human stage of such a moral proficiency, we must 
suppose that there is still some struggle with the re- 
maining vestiges of our unkind, unjust, angry and 
selfish afiections, we can see no limit to the extent to 
which this struggle may be successful; no limit to the 
degree in which these traces of the evil of our nature 
may be worn out by an enduring practice and habit 
of our better nature. And when we contemplate a 
ff fM human character which has, through a long course of 

years, and through many trials and confiicts, made 
a large progress in this career of melioration, and is 
still capable, if time be given, of further progress 
towards moral perfection, is it not reasonable to sup- 
pose that He who formed man capable of such pro- 
gress, and who, as we must needs believe, looks with 
approval on such progress where made, will not allow 
the progress to stop when it has gone on to the end of 
man's short earthly life? Is it not rather reasonable 
to suppose that the pure and elevated and all-embracing 
affection, extinguishing all vices and including all vir- 
tues, to which the good man thus tends, shall continue 
to prevail in him as a permanent and ever-during con- 
> dition, in a life after this 1 

j But can man raise himself to such a stage of moral 

progress, by his own efforts ? Such a progress is an 
approximation towards the perfection of moral Ideas, 
and therefore an approximation towards the image of 
God, in whom that perfection resides : is it not then 
reasonable to suppose that man needs a Divine In- 
fluence to enable him to reach this kind of moral 
completeness 1 And is it not also reasonable to sup- 
pose that, as he needs such aid, in order that the Idea 
of his moral progress may be realized, so he will receive 
such aid from the Divine Power which realizes the 
Idea of Divine Love in the world; and to do so, must 



PHYSICAL AND RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY. 399 

realize it in those human souls which are most fitted 
for such a purpose 1 

But these questions remind me how difficult, and 
indeed, how impossible it is to follow such trains of 
reflexion by the light of philosophy alone. To answer 
such questions, we need, not Religious Philosophy only, 
but Religion : and as I do not here venture beyond 
the domain of philosophy, I must, however abruptly, 
conclude. 



THE END. 



''• 



li 



L 



APPENDIX. 



DD 



»l 



i 



Appendix A. 
OF THE PLATONIC THEOEY OF IDEAS. 

{Cam. Phil Soc. Nov. 10, 1856.) 



THOUGH Plato has, in recent times, had many readers and ad- 
mirers among our English scholars, there has been an air of 
unreality and inconsistency about the commendation which most of 
these professed adherents have given to his doctrines. This appears 
to be no captious criticism, for instance, when those who speak of 
him as immeasurably superior in argument to his opponents, do not 
venture to produce his arguments in a definite form as able to bear 
the tug of modern controversy; — when they use his own Greek 
phrases as essential to the exposition of his doctrines, and speak as 
if these phrases could not be adequately rendered in English ; — 
and when they assent to those among the systems of philosophy of 
modern times which are the most clearly opposed to the system of 
Plato. It seems not unreasonable to require, on the contrary, that 
if Plato is to supply a philosophy for us, it must be a philosophy 
which can be expressed in our own lang'uage ; — that his system, if 
we hold it to be well founded, shall compel us to deny the opposite 
systems, modern as well as ancient ; — and that, so far as we hold 
Plato's doctrines to be satisfactorily established, we should be able 
to produce the arguments for them, and to refute the arguments 
against them. These seem reasonable requirements of the ad- 
herents of any philosophy, and therefore, of Plato's. 

I regard it as a fortunate circumstance, that we have recently 
had presented to us an exposition of Plato's philosophy which does 
conform to those reasonable conditions; and we may discuss this 
exposition with the less reserve, since its accomplished author, 
though belonging to this generation, is no longer alive. I refer to 
the Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy, by the late 
Professor Butler of Dublin. In these Lectures, we find an account 
of the Platonic Philosophy which shows that the writer had con- 
sidered it as, what it is, an attempt to solve large problems, which in 
all ages force themselves upon the notice of thoughtful men. In 
Lectures VIII. and X., of the Second Series, especially, we have a 

DD2 



ki 



i 



404 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

statement of the Platonic Theory of Ideas, which may be made a 
convenient starting point for such remarks as I wish at present to 
make. I will transcribe this account; omitting, as I do so, the 
expressions which Professor Butler uses, in order to present the 
theory, not as a dogmatical assertion, but as a view, at least not 
extravagant. For this purpose, he says, of the successive portions 
of the theory, that one is "not too absurd to be maintained ;" that 
another is "not very extravagant either;" that a third is "surely 
allowable ;" that a fourth presents "no incredible account" of the 
subject; that a fifth is " no preposterous notion in substance, and no 
unwarrantable form of phrase." Divested of these modest for- 
mulae, his account is as follows: [Vol. 11. p. 117. J 

''Man's soul is made to contain not merely a consistent scheme 
of its own notions, but a direct apprehension of real and eternal 
laws beyond it. These real and eternal laws are things intelligible, 
and not things sensible. 

"These laws impressed upon creation by its Creator, and ap- 
prehended by man, are something distinct equally from the Creator 
and from man, and the whole mass of them may fairly be termed 
the World of Things Intelligible. 

"Further, there are qualities in the supreme and ultimate Cause 
of all, which are manifested in His creation, and not merely mani- 
fested, but, in a manner — after being brought out of his super- 
essential nature into the stage of being [which is] below him, but 
next to him — are then by the causative act of creation deposited in 
things, differencing them one from the other, so that the things 
partake of them (/ierexouo-i), communicate with them {kolvcovovo-i). 

"The intelligence of man, excited to reflection by the impressions 
of these objects thus (though themselves transitory) participant of 
a divine quality, may rise to higher conceptions of the perfections 
thus faintly exhibited; and inasmuch as these perfections are 
unquestionably real existences, and known to be such in the very 
act of contemplation, — this may be regarded as a direct intellectual 
apperception of them, — a Union of the Reason with the Ideas in 
that sphere of being which is common to both. 

*• Finally, the Reason, in proportion as it learns to contemplate 
the Perfect and Eternal, desires the enjoyment of such contempla- 
tions in a more consummate degree, and cannot be fully satisfied, 
except in the actual fruition of the Perfect itself. 

" These suppositions, taken together, constitute the Theory of 
Ideas." 

In remarking upon the theory thus presented, I shall abstain 
from any discussion of the theological part of it, as a subject which 



OF THE PLATONIC THEORY OF IDEAS. 405 

would probably be considered as unsuited to the meetings of this 
Society, even in its most purely philosophical form. But I conceive 
that it will not be inconvenient, if it be not wearisome, to discuss 
the Theory of Ideas as an attempt to explain the existence of real 
knowledge; which Prof. Butler very rightly considers as the neces- 
sary aim of this and cognate systems of philosophy^. 

I conceive, then, that one of the primary objects of Plato's 
Theory of Ideas is, to explain the existence of real knowledge, 
that is, of demonstrated knowledge, such as the propositions of 
geometry offer to us. In this view, the Theory of Ideas is one 
attempt to solve a problem, much discussed in our times, What is 
the ground of geometrical truth ? I do not mean that this is the 
whole object of the Theory, or the highest of its claims. As I have 
said, I omit its theological bearings; and I am aware that there are 
passages in the Platonic Dialogues, in which the Ideas which enter 
into the apprehension and demonstration of geometrical truths are 
spoken of as subordinate to Ideas which hare a theological aspect. 
But I have no doubt that one of the main motives to the construc- 
tion of the Theory of Ideas was, the desire of solving the Problem 
"How is it possible that man should apprehend necessary and 
eternal truths?" That the truths are necessary, makes them eter- 
nal, for they do not depend on time; and that they are eternal, 
gvies them at once a theological bearing. 

That Plato, in attempting to explain the nature and possibility of 
real knowledge, had in his mind geometrical truths, as examples of 
such knowledge is, I think, evident from the general purport of his 
discourses on such subjects. The advance of Greek geometry into 
a conspicuous position, at the time when the Heraclitean sect were 
proving that nothing could be proved and nothing could be known, 
naturally suggested mathematical truth as the refutation of the skep- 
ticism of mere sensation. On the one side it was said, we can know 
nothing except by our sensations ; and that which we observe with 
our senses is constantly changing; or at any rate, may change at any 
moment. On the other hand it was said, we do know geometrical 
truths, and as truly as we know them, that they cannot change. 
Plato was quite alive to the lesson, and to the importance of this 
kind of truths. In the Meno and in the PhcBdo he refers to them, 
as illustrating the nature of the human mind : in the i?^j5w&/ic and 
the Timaus he again speaks of truths which far transcend anything 



1 P. 116. " Xo amount of human knowledge can be adequate which does 
not solve the phenomena of these absolute certainties." 




( 



406 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

which the senses can teach, or even adequately exemph'fy. The 
senses, he argues in the Theatetus, cannot give us the knowledge 
which we have; the source of it must therefore be in the mind 
itself; in the Ideas which it possesses. The impressions of sense 
are constantly varying, and incapable of giving any certainty : but 
the Ideas on which real truth depends are constant and invariable, 
and the certainty which arises from these is firm and indestructible. 
Ideas are the permanent, perfect objects, with which the mind 
deals when it contemplates necessary and eternal truths. They 
belong to a region superior to the material world, the world of 
sense. They are the objects which make up the furniture of the 
Intelligible World ; with which the Reason deals, as the Senses 
deal each with its appropriate Sensation. 

But, it will naturally be asked, what is the Relation of Ideas to 
the Objects of Sense? Some connexion, or relation, it is plain, 
there must be. The objects of sense can suggest, and can illustrate 
real truths. Though these truths of geometry cannot be proved, 
cannot even be exactly exemplified, by drawing diagrams, yet 
diagrams are of use in helping ordinary minds to see the proof; 
and to all minds, may represent and illustrate it. And though our 
conclusions with regard to objects of sense may be insecure and 
imperfect, they have some show of truth, and therefore some 
resemblance to truth. What does this arise from ? How is it ex- 
plained, if there is no truth except concerning Ideas? 

To this the Platonist replied, that the phenomena which present 
themselves to the senses partake, in a certain manner, of Ideas, and 
thus include so much of the nature of Ideas, that they include also 
an element of Truth. The geometrical diagram of Triangles and 
Squares which is drawn in the sand of the floor of the Gymnasium, 
partakes of the nature of the true Ideal Triangles and Squares, so 
that it presents an imitation and suggestion of the truths which are 
true of them. The real triangles and squares are in the mind : 
they are, as we have said, objects, not in the Visible, but in the 
Intelligible World. But the Visible Triangles and Squares make 
us call to mind the Intelligible ; and thus the objects of sense 
suggest, and, in a way, exemplify the eternal truths. 

This I conceive to be the simplest and directest ground of two 
primary parts of the Theory of Ideas ; — The Eternal Ide^s consti- 
tuting an Intelligible World ; and the Participation in these Ideas 
ascribed to the objects of the world of sense. And it is plain that 
so far, the Theory meets what, I conceive, was its primary purpose; 
it answers the questions. How can we have certain knowledge, 
though we cannot get it from Sense? and. How can we have 



OF THE PLATONIC THEORY OF IDEAS. 407 

knowledge, at least apparent, though imperfect, about the world of 

sense ? 

But is this the ground on which Plato himself rests the truth of 
his Theory of Ideas? As I have said, I have no doubt that these 
were the questions which suggested the Theory ; and it is perpetu- 
ally applied in such a manner as to show that it was held by Plato 
in this sense. But his applications of the Theory refer very often 
to another part of it ; — to the Ideas, not of Triangles and Squares, 
of space and its affections ; but to the Ideas of Relations — as the 
Relations of Like and Unlike, Greater and Less; or to things quite 
different from the things of which geometry treats, for instance, to 
Tables and Chairs, and other matters, with regard to which no 
demonstration is possible, and no general truth (still less necessary 
and eternal truth) capable of being asserted. 

I conceive that the Theory of Ideas, thus asserted and thus sup- 
ported, stands upon very much weaker ground than it does, when 
it is asserted concerning the objects of thought about which neces- 
sary and demonstrable truths are attainable. And in order to 
devise arguments against this part of the Theory, and to trace 
the contradictions to which it leads, we have no occasion to task 
our own ingenuity. We find it done to our hands, not only in 
Aristotle, the open opponent of the Theory of Ideas, but in works 
which stand among the Platonic Dialogues themselves. And I wish 
especially to point out some of the arguments against the Ideal 
Theory, which are given in one of the most noted of the Platonic 
Dialogues, the Parmenides. 

The Parmenides contains a narrative of a Dialogue held between 
Parmenides and Zeno, the Eleatic Philosophers, on the one side, 
and Socrates, along with several other persons, on the other. It 
may be regarded as divided into two main portions ; the first, in 
which the Theory of Ideas is attacked by Parmenides, and defended 
by Socrates ; the second, in which Parmenides discusses, at length, 
the Eleatic doctrine that All things are One. It is the former part, 
the discussion of the Theory of Ideas, to which I especially wish to 
direct attention at present: and in the first place, to that extension 
of the Theory of Ideas, to things of which no general truth is 
possible ; such as I have mentioned, tables and chairs. Plato often 
speaks of a Table, by way of example, as a thing of which there 
must be an Idea, not taken from any special Table or assemblage 
of Tables ; but an Ideal Table, such that all Tables are Tables by 
participating in the nature of this Idea. Now the question is, 
whether there is any force, or indeed any sense, in this assumption; 
and this question is discussed in the Parmenides, Socrates is there 



4o8 



PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 



Il' 



represented as very confident in the existence of Ideas of the high- 
est and largest kind, the Just, the Fair, the Good, and the like. 
Parmenides asks him how far he follows his theory. Is there, he 
asks, an Idea of Man, which is distinct from us men? an Idea of 
Fire ? of "Water ? " In truth," replies Socrates, " I have often hesi- 
tated, Parmenides, about these, whether we are to allow such 
Ideas." When Plato had proceeded to teach that there is an Idea 
of a Table, of course he could not reject such Ideas as Man, and 
Fire, and "Water. Parmenides, proceeding in the same line, pushes 
him further still. "Do you doubt," says he, "whether there are 
Ideas of things apparently worthless and vile? Is there an Idea of 
a Hair? of Mud? of Filth?" Socrates has not the courage to 
accept such an extension of the theory. He says, " By no means. 
These are not Ideas. These are nothing more than just what we 
see them. I have often been perplexed what to think on this sub- 
ject. But after standing to this a while, I have fled the thought, 
for fear of falling into an unfathomable abyss of absurdities." On 
this, Parmenides rebukes him for his want of consistency. "Ah 
Socrates," he says, "you are yet young; and philosophy has not yet 
taken possession of you as I think she will one day do — when you 
will have learned to find nothing despicable in any of these things. 
But now your youth inclines you to regard the opinions of men." 
It is indeed plain, that if we are to assume an Idea of a Chair or a 
Table, we can find no boundary line which will exclude Ideas of 
everything for which we have a name, however worthless or offen- 
sive. And this is an argument against the assumption of such 
Ideas, which will convince most persons of the groundlessness of 
the assumption : — the more so, as Jbr the assumption of such Ideas, 
it does not appear that Plato offers any argument whatever; nor 
does this assumption solve any problem, or remove any difficulty^. 
Parmenides, then, had reason to say that consistency required 
Socrates, if he assumed any such Ideas, to assume all. A nd I con- 
ceive his reply to be to this effect ; and to be thus a reductio ad 
ahsurdum of the Theory of Ideas in this sense. According to the 
opinions of those who see in the Parmenides an exposition of Pla- 
tonic doctrines, I believe that Parmenides is conceived in this 
passage, to suggest to Socrates what is necessary for the comple- 
tion of the Theory of Ideas. But upon either supposition, I wish 



i 



« Prof. Butler, Lect. ix. Second 
Series, p. 136, appears to think that 
Plato had sufficient grounds (of a 



theological kind) for the assumption 
of such Ideas ; but I see no trace of 
them. 



OF THE PLATONIC THEORY OF IDEAS. 4O9 

especially to draw the attention of my readers to the position of 
superiority in the Dialogue in which Parmenides is here placed 
with regard to Socrates. 

Parmenides then proceeds to propound to Socrates difficulties 
with regard to the Ideal Theory, in another of its aspects; — namely, 
when it assumes Ideas of Relations of things ; and here also, I wish 
especially to have it considered how far the answers of Socrates to 
these objections are really satisfactory and conclusive. 

"Tell me," says he (§ 10, Bekker), " You conceive that there are 
certain Ideas, and that things partaking of these Ideas, are called 
by the corresponding names ; — an Idea of Likeness, things partaking 
of which are called Like; — of Greatness, whence they are Great : 
of Beauty, whence they are Beautiful?'''' Socrates assents, nkt%.- 
rally: this being the simple and universal statement of the Theory, 
in this case. But then comes one of the real difficulties of the 
Theory. Since the special things participate of the General Idea, 
has each got the whole of the Idea, which is, of course, One ; or 
has each a part of the Idea ? "For," says Parmenides, "can there 
be any other way of participation than these two?" Socrates 
replies by a similitude : " The Idea, though One, may be wholly in 
each object, as the Day, one and the same, is wholly in each place." 
The physical illustration, Parmenides damages by making it more 
physical still. "You are ingenious, Socrates," he says, (§ 11) *'in 
making the same thing be in many places at the same time. If you 
had a number of persons wrapped up in a sail or web, would you 
say that each of them had the whole of it? Is not the case similar?" 
Socrates cannot deny that it is. "But in this case, each person has 
only a part of the whole; and thus your Ideas are partible." To 
this, Socrates is represented as assenting in the briefest possible 
phrase; and thus, here again, as I conceive, Parmenides retains his 
superiority over Socrates in the Dialogue. 

There are many other arguments urged against the Ideal Theory 
by Parmenides. The next is a consequence of this partibility of 
Ideas, thus supposed to be proved, and is ingenious enough. It is this : 

" If the Idea of Greatness be distributed among things that are 
Great, so that each has a part of it, each separate thing will be 
Great in virtue of a part of Greatness which is less than Greatness 
itself. Is not this absurd?" Socrates submissively allows that it is. 

And the same argument is applied in the case of the Idea of 
Equality. 

" If each of several things have a part of the Idea of Equality, it 
will be Equal to something, ia virtue of something which is less 
than Equality." 



1 



410 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

And in the same way with regard to the Idea of Smallness. 

*' If each thing be small by having a part of the Idea of Smallness, 
Smallness itself will be greater than the small thing, since that is 
a part of itself." 

These ingenious results of the partibility of Ideas remind us of 
the ingenuity shown in the Greek geometry, especially the Fifth 
Book of Euclid. They are represented as not resisted by Socrates 
(§ 12) : " In what way, Socrates, can things participate in Ideas, if 
they cannot do so either integrally or partibly ?" " By my troth," 
says Socrates, " it does not seem easy to tell." Parmenides, who 
completely takes the conduct of the Dialogue, then turns to another 
part of the subject and propounds other arguments, " "What do 
you say to this?" he asks. 

*' There is an Ideal Greatness, and there are many things, separate 
from it, and Great by virtue of it. But now if you look at Great- 
ness and the Great things together, since they are all Great, they 
must be Great in virtue of some higher Idea of Greatness which 
includes both. And thus you have a Second Idea of Greatness ; and 
in like manner you will have a third, and so on indefinitely." 

This also, as an argument against the separate existence of Ideas, 
Socrates is represented as unable to answer. He replies inter- 
rogatively : 

*' Why, Parmenides, is not each of these Ideac a Thought, which, 
by its nature, cannot exist in anything except in the Mind? In 
that case your consequences would not follow." 

This is an answer which changes the course of the reasoning : but 
still, not much to the advantage of the Ideal Theory. Parmenides 
is still ready with very perplexing arguments. (§ 13.) 

"The Ideas, then," he says, "are Thoughts. They must be 
Thoughts of something. They are Thoughts of something, then, 
which exists in all the special things; some one thing which the 
Thought perceives in all the special things; and this one Thought 
thus involved in all, is the Idea. But then, if the special things, as 
you say, participate in the Idea, they participate in the Thought; 
and thus, all objects are made up of Thoughts, and all things think; 
or else, there are thoughts in things which do not think." 

This argument drives Socrates from the position that Ideas are 
Thoughts, and he moves to another, that they are Paradigms, 
Exemplars of the qualities of things, to which the things them- 
selves are like, and their being thus like, is their participating in 
the Idea. But here too, he has no better success. Parmenides 
argues thus : 

"If the Object be like the Idea, the Idea must be like the 



OF THE PLATONIC THEORY OP IDEAS. 4II 

Object. And since the Object and the Idea are like, they must, 
according to your doctrine, participate in the Idea of Likeness. 
And thus you have one Idea participating in another Idea, and so 
on in infinitum." Socrates is obliged to allow that this demolishes 
the notion of objects partaking in their Ideas by likeness : and that 
he must seek some other way. "You see then, O Socrates," says 
Parmenides, " what difficulties follow, if any one asserts the inde- 
pendent existence of Ideas!" Socrates allows that this is true. 
"And yet," says Parmenides, "you do not half perceive the dif- 
ficulties which follow from this doctrine of Ideas." Socrates ex- 
presses a wish to know to what Parmenides refers ; and the aged sage 
replies by explaining that if Ideas exist independently of us, we 
can never know anything about them : and that even the Gods 
could not know anything about man. This argument, though 
somewhat obscure, is evidently stated with perfect earnestness, 
and Socrates is represented as giving his assent to it. *' And yet,** 
says Parmenides, (end of § 18) "if any one gives up entirely the 
doctrine of Ideas, how is any reasoning possible ?" 

All the way through this discussion, Parmenides appears as vastly 
superior to Socrates; as seeing completely the tendency of every 
line of reasoning, while Socrates is driven blindly from one position 
to another; and as kindly and graciously advising a young man 
respecting the proper aims of his philosophical career; as well as 
clearly pointing out the consequences of his assumptions. Nothing 
can be more complete than the higher position assigned to Par- 
menides in the Dialogue. 

This has not been overlooked by the Editors and Commentators 
of Plato. To take for example one of the latest; in Steinhart's 
Introduction to Hieronymus MUUer's translation of Parmenides 
(Leipzig, 1852), p. 261, he says : " It strikes us, at first, as strange, 
that Plato here seems to come forward as the assailant of his own 
doctrine of Ideas. For the difficulties which he makes Parmenides 
propound against that doctrine are by no means sophistical or 
superficial, but substantial and to the point. Moreover there is 
among all these objections, which are partly derived from the 
Megarics, scarce one which does not appear again in the penetrating 
and comprehensive argumentations of Aristotle against the Platonic 
Doctrine of Ideas." 

Of course, both this writer and other commentators on Plato 
offer something as a solution of this difficulty. But though these 
explanations are subtle and ingenious, they appear to leave no 
satisfactory or permanent impression on the mind. I must avow 
that, to me, they appear insufficient and empty ; and I cannot help 



t#i! 






i 



412 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

believing that the solution is of a more simple and direct kind. It 
may seem bold to maintain an opinion different from that of so 
many eminent scholars; but I think that the solution which I offer, 
will derive confirmation from a consideration of the whole Dialogue; 
and therefore I shall venture to propound it in a distinct and 
positive form. It is this: 

I conceive that the Parmenides is not a Platonic Dialogue at all ; 
but Antiplatonic, or more properly, Eleatic : written, not by 
Plato, in order to explain and prove his Theory of Ideas, but by 
some one, probably an admirer of Parmenides and Zeno, in order 
to show how strong were his master's arguments against the 
Platonists and how weak their objections to the Eleatic doctrine. 

I conceive that this view throws an especial light on every part 
of the Dialogue, as a brief survey of it will show. Parmenides 
and Zeno come to Athens to the Panathenaic festival : Parmenides 
already an old man, with a silver head, dignified and benevolent in 
his appearance, looking five and sixty years old : Zeno about forty, 
tall and handsome. They are the guests of Pythodorus, outside 
the "Wall, in the Ceramicus ; and there they are visited by Socrates 
then young, and others who wish to hear the written discourses of 
Zeno. These discourses are explanations of the philosophy of 
Parmenides, which he had delivered in verse. 

Socrates is represented as showing, from the first, a disposition 
to criticize Zeno's dissertation very closely ; and without any prelude 
or preparation, he applies the Doctrine of Ideas to refute the Eleatic 
Doctrine that All Things are One. (§3.) When he had heard to 
the end, he begged to have the first Proposition of the First Book 
read again. And then, "How is it, O Zeno, that you say, That 
if the Things which exist are Many, and not One, they must be at 
the same time like and unlike? Is this your argument ? Or do I 
misunderstand you?" "No," says Zeno, "you understand quite 
rightly." Socrates then turns to Parmenides, and says, somewhat 
rudely, as it seems, "Zeno is a great friend of yours, Parmenides: 
he shows his friendship not only in other ways, but also in what he 
writes. For he says the same things which you say, though he 
pretends that he does not. You say, in your poems, that All Things 
are One, and give striking proofs: he says that existences are not 
many, and he gives many and good proofs. You seem to soar above 
us, but you do not really differ." Zeno takes this sally good- 
humouredly, and tells him that he pursues the scent with the keen- 
ness of a Laconian hound. " But," says he (§ 6), "there really is 
less of ostentation in my writing than you think. My Essay was 
merely written as a defence of Parmenides long ago, when 1 was 



OF THE PLATONIC THEORY OF IDEAS. 413 

young ; and is not a piece of display composed now that I am 
older. And it was stolen from me by some one; so that I had no 
choice about publishing it." 

Here we have, as I conceive, Socrates already represented as 
placed in a disadvantageous position, by his abruptness, rude 
allusions, and readiness to put bad interpretations on what is done. 
For this, Zeno's gentle pleasantry is a rebuke. Socrates, however, 
forthwith rushes into the argument; arguing, as 1 have said, for 
his own Theory. 

"Tell me," he says, "do you not think there is an Idea of Like- 
ness, and an Idea of Unlikeness? And that everything partakes of 
these Ideas? The things which partake of Unlikeness are unlike. 
If all things partake of both Ideas, they are both like and unlike ; 
and where is the wonder? (§ 7.) If you could show that Likeness 
itself was Unlikeness, it would be a prodigy; but if things which 
partake of these opposites, have both the opposite qualities, it 
appears to me, Zeno, to involve no absurdity. 

" So if Oneness itself were to be shown to be Maniness " (I hope 
I may use this word, rather than multiplicity) " I should be sur- 
prised; but if any one say that I am at the same time one and many, 
where is the wonder ? For I partake of maniness : my right side is 
different from my left side, my upper from my under parts. But I 
also partake of Oneness, for I am here One of us seven. So that 
both are true. And so if any one say that stocks and stones, and 
the like, are both one and many, — not saying that Oneness is 
Maniness, nor Maniness Oneness, he says nothing wonderful : he 
says what all will allow. (§ 8.) If then, as I said before, any one 
should take separately the Ideas or Essence of Things, as Likeness 
and Unlikeness, Maniness and Oneness, Rest and Motion, and the 
like, and then should show that these can mix and separate again, 
I should be wonderfully surprised, O Zeno: for I reckon that I 
have tolerably well made myself master of these subjects 3. I 
should be much more surprised if any one could show me this con- 
tradiction involved in the Ideas themselves ; in the object of the 
Reason, as well as in Visible objects." 

It may be remarked that Socrates delivers all this argumenta- 
tion with the repetitions which it involves, and the vehemence of 



» I am aware that this translation of my view ; but I do not conceive 

is different from the common trans- that the argument would be percep- 

lation. It appears to me to be con- tibly weaker, if the common inter- 

sistent with the habit of the Greek pretation were adopted, 
language. It slightly leans in favour 



1 



414 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERT. 

its manner, without waiting for a reply to any of his interrogations; 
instead of making every step the result of a concession of his 
opponent, as is the case in the Dialogues where he is represented 
as triumphant. Every reader of Plato will recollect also that in 
those Dialogues, the triumph of temper on the part of Socrates is 
represented as still more remarkable than the triumph of argument. 
No vehemence or rudeness on the part of his adversaries prevents 
his calmly following his reasoning; and he parries coarseness by 
compliment. Now in this Dialogue, it is remarkable that this kind 
of triumph is given to the adversaries of Socrates. " When Socrates 
had thus delivered himself," says Pythodorus, the narrator of the 
conversation, " we thought that Parmenides and Zeno would both 
be angry. But it was not so. They bestowed entire attention 
upon him, and often looked at each other, and smiled, as in 
admiration of Socrates. And when he had ended, Parmenides 
said : * O Socrates, what an admirable person you are, for the 
earnestness with which you reason ! Tell me then. Do you then 
believe the doctrine to which you have been referring ; — that there 
are certain Ideas, existing independent of Things ; and that there 
are, separate from the Ideas, Things which partake of them? 
And do you think that there is an Idea of Likeness besides the 
likeness which we have; and a Oneness and a Maniness, and the 
like? And an Idea of the Right, and the Good, and the Fair, and 
of other such qualities ? ' " Socrates says that he does hold this ; 
Parmenides then asks him, how far he carries this doctrine of 
Ideas, and propounds to him the difficulties which I have already 
stated ; and when Socrates is unable to answer him, lets him off 
in the kind but patronizing way which I have already described. 

To me, comparing this with the intellectual and moral attitude 
of Socrates in the most dramatic of the other Platonic Dialogues, 
it is inconceivable, that this representation of Socrates should be 
Plato's. It is just what Zeno would have written, if he had 
wished to bestow upon his master Parmenides the calm dignity and 
irresistible argument which Plato assigns to Socrates. And this 
character is kept up to the end of the Dialogue. When Socrates 
(§ 19) has acknowledged that he is at loss which way to turn for 
his philosophy, Parmenides undertakes, though with kind words, 
to explain to him by what fundamental error in the course of his 
speculative habits he has been misled. He says; "You try to 
make a complete Theory of Ideas, before you have gone through 
a proper intellectual discipline. The impulse which urges you to 
such speculations is admirable — is divine. But you must exercise 
yourself in reasoning which many think trifling, while you are yet 



OF THE PLATONIC THEOET OF IDEAS. 415 

young; if you do not, the truth will elude your grasp." Socrates 
asks submissively what is the course of such discipline : Parmenides 
replies, " The course pointed out by Zeno, as you have heard." 
And then, gives him some instructions in what manner he is to test 
any proposed Theory. Socrates is frightened at the laboriousness 
and obscurity of the process. He says, " You tell me, Parmenides, 
of an overwhelming course of study ; and I do not well comprehend 
it. Give me an example of such an examination of a Theory." 
"It is too great a labour," says he, "for one so old as I am." 
"Well then, you, Zeno," says Socrates, " will you not give us such 
an example ? " Zeno answers, smiling, that they had better get it 
from Parmenides himself; and joins in the petition of Socrates 
to him, that he will instruct them. All the company unite in the 
request. Parmenides compares himself to an aged racehorse, 
brought to the course after long disuse, and trembling at the risk ; 
but finally consents. And as an example of a Theory to be 
examined, takes his own Doctrine, that All Things are One, 
carrying on the Dialogue thenceforth, not with Socrates, but with 
Aristoteles (not the Stagirite, but afterwards one of the Thirty), 
whom he chooses as a younger and more manageable respondent. 

The discussion of this Doctrine is of a very subtle kind, and 
it would be difficult to make it intelligible to a modern reader. 
Nor is it necessary for my purpose to attempt to do so. It is plain 
that the discussion is intended seriously, as an example of true 
philosophy ; and each step of the process is represented as irresis- 
tible. The Respondent has nothing to say but Yes; or No; How 
so ? Certainly ; It does appear; It does not appear. The discus- 
sion is carried to a much greater length than all the rest of the 
Dialogue ; and the result of the reasoning is summed up by Par- 
menides thus: "If One exist, it is Nothing. Whether One exist 
©r do not exist, both It and Other Things both with regard to 
Themselves and to Each other. All and Everyway are and are not, 
appear and appear not." And this also is fully assented to; and 
so the Dialogue ends. 

I shall not pretend to explain the Doctrines there examined 
that One exists, or One does not exist, nor to trace their con- 
sequences. But these were Formulae, as familiar in the Eleatic 
school, as Ideas in the Platonic; and were undoubtedly regarded 
by the Megaric contemporaries of Plato as quite worthy of being 
discussed, after the Theory of Ideas had been overthrown. This, 
accordingly, appears to be the purport of the Dialogue ; and it is 
pursued, as we see, without any bitterness toward Socrates or his 
disciples; but with a persuasion that they were poor philosophers, 
conceited talkers, and weak disputants. 



a 



i 



416 PHILOSOPHY OF DISCOVERY. 

The external circumstances of the Dialogue tend, I conceive, 
to confirm this opinion, that it is not Plato's. The Dialogue 
begins, as the Republic begins, with the mention of a Cephalus, 
and two brothers, Glaucon and Adimantus, But this Cephalus 
is not the old man of the Piraeus, of whom we have so charming a 
picture in the opening of the Republic. He is from Clazomenae, 
and tells us that his fellow-citizens are great lovers of philosophy ; 
a trait of their character which does not appear elsewhere. Even 
the brothers Glaucon and Adimantus are not the two brothers 
of Plato who conduct the Dialogue in the later books of the 
Republic : so at least Ast argues, who holds the genuineness of the 
Dialogue. This Glaucon and Adimantus are most wantonly in- 
troduced; for the sole office they have, is to say that they have 
a half-brother Antiphon, by a second marriage of their mother. 
No such half-brother of Plato, and no such marriage of his mother, 
are noticed in other remains of antiquity. Antiphon is represented 
as having been the friend of Pythodorus, who was the host of 
Parmenides and Zeno, as we have seen. And Antiphon, having 
often heard from Pythodorus the account of the conversation of 
his guests with Socrates, retained it in his memory, or in his 
tablets, so as to be able to give the full report of it which we have 
in the Dialogue Parmenides^. To me, all this looks like a clumsy 
imitation of the Introductions to the Platonic Dialogues. 

I say nothing of the chronological difficulties which arise from 
bringing Parmenides and Socrates together, though they are 
considerable; for they have been explained more or less satisfac- 
torily ; and certainly in the Thecetetus, Socrates is represented as 
saying that he when very young had seen Parmenides who was 
very old^ Athenseus, however^, reckons this among Plato's 
fictions. Schleiermacher gives up the identification and relation 
of the persons mentioned in the Introduction as an unmanageable 
story. 

I may add that I believe Cicero, who refers to so many of Plato's 
Dialogues, nowhere refers to the Parmenides. Athenseus does 
refer to it ; and in doing so blames Plato^ for his coarse imputa- 
tions on Zeno and Parmenides. According to our view, these arc 
hostile attempts to ascribe rudeness to Socrates or to Plato. Stall- 
baum acknowledges that Aristotle nowhere refers to this Dia- 
logue. 



* In the First Alcibiades, Pytho- (119 a), 
dorus is mentioned as having paid * P. 183 e. 
joo minae to Zeno for his instructions ' Deip. xi. c. 15, p. 105. 



Appendix B. 

ON PLATO'S SUEYEY OF THE SCIENCES. 

{Gam. Phil SoG. April 23, 1855.) 



\ SURVEY by Plato of the state of the Sciences, as existing in 
his time, maybe regarded as hardly less interesting than Francis 
Bacon's Review of the condition of the Sciences of his time, con- 
tained in the Advancement of Learning. Such a survey we have, in 
the seventh book of Plato's Republic ; and it will be instructive to 
examine what the Sciences then were, and what Plato aspired to 
have them become ; aiding ourselves by the light afforded by the 
subsequent history of Science. 

In the first place, it is interesting to note, in the two writersj 
Plato and Bacon, the same deep conviction that the large and 
profound philosophy which they recommended, had not, in their 
judgment, been pursued in an adequate and worthy manner, by 
those who had pursued it at all. The reader o? Bacon will 
recollect the passage in the Novum Organon (Lib. I. Aphorism 80) 
where he speaks with indignation of the way in which philosophy 
had been degraded and perverted, by being applied as a mere in- 
strument of utility or of early education: ''So that the great 
mother of the Sciences is thrust down with indignity to the offices 
of a handmaid ; — is made to minister to the labours of medicine or 
mathematics ; or again, to give the first preparatory tinge to the 
immature minds of youth^" 



1 Accedit et illud quod naturaHs transitus cujusdam et pontisternii ad 

philosophia in lis ipsis viris, qui ei alia. Atque magna ista scientiarum 

incubuenmt, vacantem et integrum mater ad officia anciUse detrusa est; 

hominem, prsesertim his recentiori- quae medicinse aut mathematicis ope- 

bus temporibus, vix nacta sit; nisi ribus ministrat, et rursus quse ado. 

forte quis monachi alicujus in cellula, lescentium immatura ingenia lavat 

aut nobilis in villula lucubrantis, et imbuat velut tinctura quadam 

exemplum adduxerit; sed facta est prima, ut aliam postea felicius et 

demum naturalis philosophia instar commodius excipiant. 

E E 



4i8 



APPENDIX B. 




I 



In the like spirit, Plato says (Rep. vi. § 11, Bekker's ed.) : 

" Observe how boldly and fearlessly I set about my explanation of 
my assertion that philosophers ought to rule the world. For I 
begin by saying, that the State must begin to treat the study of 
philosophy in a way opposite to that now practised. Now, those 
who meddle at all with this study are put upon it when they are 
children, between the lessons which they receive in the farm -yard 
and in the shop 2; and as soon as they have been introduced to the 
hardest part of the subject, are taken off from it, even those who 
get the most of philosophy. By the hardest part, I mean, the 
discussion of principles — Dialectic^. And in their succeeding years, 
if they are willing to listen to a few lectures of those who make 
philosophy their business, they think they have done great things, 
as if it were something foreign to the business of life. And as 
they advance towards old age, with a very few exceptions, philosophy 
in them is extinguished : extinguished far more completely than the 
Heraclitean sun, for theirs is not lighted up again, as that is every 
morning :" alluding to the opinion which was propounded, by way of 
carrying the doctrine of the unfixity of sensible objects to an ex- 
treme ; that the Sun is extinguished every night and lighted again 
in the morning. In opposition to this practice, Plato holds that 
philosophy should be the especial employment of men's minds when 
their bodily strength fails. 

What Plato means by Dialectic, which he, in the next Book, 
calls the highest part of philosophy, and which is, I think, what he 
here means by the hardest part of philosophy, I may hereafter 
consider : but at present I wish to pass in review the Sciences 
which he speaks of, as leading the way to that highest study. These 
Sciences are Arithmetic, Plane Geometry, Solid Geometry, As- 
tronomy and Harmonics. 

The view in which Plato here regards the Sciences is, as the 
instruments of that culture of the philosophical spirit which is to 
make the philosopher the fit and natural ruler of the perfect State 
— the Platonic Polity. It is held that to answer this purpose, the 
mind must be instructed in something more stable than the know- 
ledge supplied by the senses; — a knowledge of objects which are 
constantly changing, and which therefore can be no real permanent 
Knowledge, but only Opinion. The real and permanent Know- 
ledge which we thus require is to be found in certain sciences, 
which deal with truths necessary and universal, as we should now 



2 fieTa^v otKoi'o^ctas Kal xP>?|w.aTKj-- money-getting. 
jiAoO, between house-keeping and ^ to jrepl tow? Adyous. 



ON PLATO S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 419 

describe them : and which therefore are, in Plato's language, a 
knowledge of that which really is'^. 

This is the object of the Sciences of which Plato speaks. And 
hence,when he introduces Arithmetic, as the first of the Sciences which 
are to be employed in this mental discipline, he adds (vii. § 8) that 
it must be not mere common Arithmetic, but a science which leads 
to speculative truths^, seen by Intuition^; not an Arithmetic which 
is studied for the sake of buying and selling, as among tradesmen 
and shopkeepers, but for the sake of pure and real Science ^. 

I shall not dwell upon the details with which he illustrates this 
view, but proceed to the other Sciences which he mentions. 

Geometry is then spoken of, as obviously the next Science in 
order; and it is asserted that it really does answer the required 
condition of drawing the mind from visible, mutable phenomena to 
a permanent reality. Geometers indeed speak of their visible dia- 
grams, as if their problems were certain practical processes ; to 
erect a perpendicular; to construct a square: and the like. But 
this language, though necessary, is really absurd. The figures are 
mere aids to their reasonings. Their knowledge is really a know- 
ledge not of visible objects, but of permanent realities : and thus, 
Geometry is one of the helps by which the mind may be drawn to 
Truth ; by which the philosophical spirit may be formed, which 
looks upwards instead of downwards. 

Astronomy is suggested as the Science next in order, but Socrates, 
the leader of the dialogue, remarks that there is an intermediate 
Sc'ence first to be considered. Geometry treats of plane figures; 
Astronomy treats of solids in motion, that is, of spheres in motion ; 
for the astronomy of Plato's time was mainly the doctrine of 
the sphere. But before treating of solids in motion, we must 
have a science which treats of solids simply. After taking space of 
two dimensions, we must take space of three dimensions, length, 
breadth and depth, as in cubes and the like^. But such a Science, 
it is remarked, has not yet been discovered. Plato "notes as 



< The Sciences are to draw the Plato does not really ascribe much 

mind from that which grows and weight to this use of Science, as we 

perishes to that which really is : see in what he says of Geometry and 

fx.a.6rjixa \}/vx'ns bXicov dno tov ytyvo- Astronomy. 

/xeVou cttI to 6v. ^ bp6<Zg ex^f- e^J?? /ixera Sevrepav 

^ €1t\ 0eav T^? t(j3v api0ju,(ov (|)v<rea)s. av^rjv rpCrriv Aajot|3aVeiv, e<rTi Se ttov 

^ T]7 V0T](Tei avrfj. tovto Trepl Trjv twv Kv^tav a.v^r\v koX 

7 He adds " and for the sake of to /3o0ou5 fierexov. 
war;" this point I have passed by. 

EE 2 



420 APPENDIX B. 

deficient " this branch of knowledge; to use the expression employed 
by Bacon on the like occasions in his Review. Plato goes on to 
say, that the cultivators of such a science have not received due en- 
couragement ; and that though scorned and starved by the public, 
and not recommended by any obvious utility, it has still made great 
progress, in virtue of its own attractiveness. 

In fact, researches in Solid Geometry had been pursued with 
great zeal by Plato and his friends, and with remarkable success. 
The five Regular Solids, the Tetrahedron or Pyramid, Cube, Octa- 
hedron, Dodecahedron and Icosahedron, had been discovered; and 
the curious theorem, that of Regular Solids there can be just so 
many, these and no others, was known. The doctrine of these 
Solids was already applied in a way, fanciful and arbitrary, no 
doubt, but ingenious and lively, to the theory of the Universe. In 
the Timceus, the elements have these forms assigned to them re- 
spectively. Earth has the Cube : Fire has the Pyramid : Water has 
the Octahedron: Air has the Icosahedron: and the Dodecahedron 
is the plan of the Universe itself. This application of the doctrine 
of the Regular Solids shows that the knowledge of those figures 
was already established; and that Plato had a right to speak of 
Solid Geometry as a real and interesting Science. And that this 
subject was so recondite and profound, — that these five Regular 
Solids had so little application in the geometry which has a bearing 
on man's ordinary thoughts and actions, — made it ail the more 
natural for Plato to suppose that these solids had a bearing on the 
constitution of the Universe ; and we shall find that such a belief 
in later times found a ready acceptance in the minds of mathemati- 
cians who followed in the Platonic line of speculation. 

Plato next proceeds to consider Astronomy; and here we have 
an amusing touch of philosophical drama. Glaucon, the hearer and 
pupil in the Dialogue, is desirous of showing that he has profited 
by what his instructor had said about the real uses of Science. He 
says Astronomy is a very good branch of education. It is such a 
very useful science for seamen and husbandmen and the like. 
Socrates says, with a smile, as we may suppose: "You are very 
amusing with your zeal for utility. I suppose you are afraid of 
being condemned by the good people of Athens for diff'using Use- 
less Knowledge." A little afterwards Glaucon tries to do better, 
but still with no great success. He says, " You blamed me for 
praising Astronomy awkwardly : but now I will follow your lead. 
Astronomy is one of the sciences which you require, because it 
makes men's minds look upwards, and study things above. Any one 
can see that." *' Well," says Socrates, "perhaps any one can see it 



ON PLATO S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 42 1 

except me — I cannot see it." Glaucon is surprised, but Socrates 
goes on : " Your notice of ' the study of tilings above' is certainly 
a very magnificent one. You seem to think that if a man bends his 
head back and looks at the ceiling he 'looks upwards' with his 
mind as well as his eyes. You may be right and I may be wrong: 
but I have no notion of any science which makes the mind look 
upwards, except a science which is about the permanent and the 
invisible. It makes no difference, as to that matter, whether a man 
gapes and looks up or shuts his mouth and looks down. If a man 
merely look up and stare at sensible objects, his mind does not look 
upwards, even if he were to pursue his studies swimming on his back 
in the sea." 

The Astronomy, then, which merely looks at phenomena does 
not satisfy Plato. He wants something more. "What is it? as 
Glaucon very naturally asks. 

Plato then describes Astronomy as a real science (§ 11). " The 
variegated adornments which appear in the sky, the visible lumina- 
ries, we must judge to be the most beautiful and the most perfect 
things of their kind: but since they are mere visible figures, we 
must suppose them to be far inferior to the true objects; namely, 
those spheres which, with their real proportions of quickness and 
slowness, their real number, their real figures, revolve and carry 
luminaries in their revolutions. These objects are to be apprehend- 
ed by reason and mental conception, not by vision." And he then 
goes on to say that the varied figures which the skies present to the 
eye are to be used as diagrams to assist the study of that higher 
truth; just as if any one were to study geometry by means of beau- 
tiful diagrams constructed by Daedalus or any other consummate 
artist. 

Here then, Plato points to a kind of astronomical science which 
goes beyond the mere arrangement of phenomena: an astronomy 
which, it would seem, did not exist at the time when he wrote. It 
is natural to inquire, whether we can determine more precisely 
what kind of astronomical science he meant, and whether such 
science has been brought into existence since his time. 

He gives us some further features of the philosophical astronomy 
which he requires. " As you do not expect to find in the most 
exquisite geometrical diagrams the true evidence of quantities being 
equal, or double, or in any other relation : so the true astronomer 
will not think that the proportion of the day to the month, or the 
month to the year, and the like, are real and immutable things. 
He will seek a deeper truth than these. We must treat Astronomy, 
like Geometry, as a series of problems suggested by visible things. 



422 



APPENDIX B. 




i 



We must apply the intelligent portion of our mind to the sub- 
ject." 

Here we really come in view of a class of problems which astro- 
nomical speculators at certain periods have proposed to themselves. 
What is the real ground of the proportion of the day to the month, 
and of the month to the year, I do not know that any writer of 
great name has tried to determine: but to ask the reason of these 
proportions, namely, that of the revolution of the earth on its axis, 
of the moon in its orbit, and of the earth in its orbit, are questions 
just of the same kind as to ask the reason of the proportion of 
the revolutions of the planets in their orbits, and of the proportion 
of the orbits themselves. Now who has attempted to assign such 
reasons? 

Of course we shall answer, Kepler: not so much in the Laws of 
the Planetary motions which bear his name, as in the Law which 
at an earlier period he thought he had discovered, determining the 
proportion of the distances of the several Planets from the Sun. 
And, curiously enough, this solution of a problem which we may 
conceive Plato to have had in his mind, Kepler gave by means of 
the Five Regular Solids which Plato had brought into notice, and 
had employed in his theory of the Universe given in the Timasus. 

Kepler's speculations on the subject just mentioned were given to 
the world in the Mysterium Cosmographicum published in 1596. In 
his Preface, he says "In the beginning of the year 1595 I brooded 
with the whole energy of my mind on the subject of the Copernican 
system. There were three things in particular of which I pertina- 
ciously sought the causes ; why they are not other than they are : the 
number, the size, and the motion of the orbits." We see how 
strongly he had his mind impressed with the same thought which 
Plato had so confidently uttered : that there must be some reason 
for those proportions in the scheme of the Universe which appear 
casual and vague. He was confident at this period that he had 
solved two of the three questions which haunted him ; — that he 
could account for the number and the size of the planetary orbits. 
His account was given in this way. — "The orbit of the Earth is a 
circle; round the sphere to which this circle belongs describe a 
dodecahedron ; the sphere including this will give the orbit of 
Mars. Round Mars inscribe a tetrahedron; the circle including 
this will be the orbit of Jupiter. Describe a cube round Jupiter's 
orbit; the circle including this will be the orbit of Saturn. Now 
inscribe in the Earth's orbit an icosahedron : the circle inscribed in 
it will be the orbit of Venus. Inscribe an octahedron in the orbit 
of Venus ; the circle inscribed in it will be Mercury's orbit. This is 



ON PLATO S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 423 

the reason of the number of the planets ;" and also of the magni- 
tudes of their orbits. 

These proportions were only approximations ; and the Rule thus 
asserted has been shown to be unfounded, by the discovery of new 
Planets. This Law of Kepler has been repudiated by succeeding 
Astronomers. So far, then, the Astronomy which Plato requires 
as a part of true philosophy has not been brought into being. But 
are we thence to conclude that the demand for such a kind of 
Astronomy was a mere Platonic imagination? — was a mistake 
which more recent and sounder views have corrected? "We can 
hardly venture to say that. For the questions which Kepler thus 
asked, and which he answered by the assertion of this erroneous 
Law, are questions of exactly the same kind as those which he asked 
and answered by means of the true Laws which still fasten his 
name upon one of the epochs of astronomical history. If he was 
wrong in assigning reasons for the number and size of the planetary 
orbits, he was right in assigning a reason for the proportion of the 
motions. This he did in the Harmonice Mundi, published in l6l9: 
where he established that the squares of the periodic times of the 
different Planets are as the cubes of their mean distances from the 
central Sun. Of this discovery he speaks with a natural exultation, 
which succeeding astronomers have thought well founded. He 
says: "What I prophesied two and twenty years ago as soon as I 
had discovered the five solids among the heavenly bodies; what I 
firmly believed before I had seen the Harmonics of Ptolemy; what 
I promised my friends in the title of this book {On the perfect Har- 
mony of the celestial motions), which I named before 1 was sure of 
my discovery; what sixteen years ago I regarded as a thing to be 
sought; that for which I joined Tycho Brahe, for which I settled in 
Prague, for which I devoted the best part of my life to astronomical 
contemplations; at length I have brought to light, and have recog- 
nized its truth beyond my most sanguine expectations." {Harm. 
Mundi, Lib. v.) 

Thus the Platonic notion, of an Astronomy which deals with 
doctrines of a more exact and determinate kind than the obvious 
relations of phaenomena, may be found to tend either to error or to 
truth. Such aspirations point equally to the five regular solids 
which Kepler imagined as determining the planetary orbits, and to 
the Laws of Kepler in which Newton detected the effect of univer- 
sal gravitation. The realities which Plato looked for, as something 
incomparably more real than the visible luminaries, are found, when 
we find geometrical figures, epicycles and eccentrics, laws of motion 



424 



APPENDIX B. 



') 



and laws of force, which explain the appearances. His Realities are 
Theories which account for the Phenomena, Ideas which connect 
the Facts. 

But, is Plato right in holding that such Realities as these are 
more real than the Phenomena, and constitute an Astronomy of a 
higher kind than that of mere Appearances ? To this we shall, of 
course, reply that Theories and Facts have each their reality, but 
that these are realities of different kinds. Kepler's Laws are as real 
as day and night ; the force of gravity tending to the Sun is as real 
as the Sun ; but not more so. True Theories and Facts are equally 
real, for true Theories are Facts, and Facts are familiar Theories. 
Astronomy is, as Plato says, a series of Problems suggested by visi- 
ble Things ; and the Thoughts in our own minds which bring the 
solutions of these Problems, have a reality in the Things which sug- 
gest them. 

But if we try, as Plato does, to separate and oppose to each other 
the Astronomy of Appearances and the Astronomy of Theories, we 
attempt that which is impossible. There are no Phenomena which 
do not, exhibit some Law ; no Law can be conceived without Pheno- 
♦mena. The heavens oifer a series of Problems ; but however many 
of these Problems we solve, there remain still innumerable of them 
unsolved ; and these unsolved Problems have solutions, and are not 
different in kind from those of which the extant solution is most 
complete. 

Nor can we justly distinguish, with Plato, Astronomy into tran- 
sient appearances and permanent truths. The theories of Astro- 
nomy are permanent, and are manifested in a series of changes : but 
the change is perpetual just because the theory is permanent. The 
perpetual change is the permanent theory. The perpetual changes 
in the positions and movements of the planets, for instance, manifest 
the permanent machinery: the machinery of cycles and epicycles, as 
Plato would have said, and as Copernicus would have agreed ; while 
Kepler, with a profound admiration for both, would have asserted 
that the motions might be represented by ellipses, more exactly, if 
not more truly. The cycles and epicycles, or the ellipses, are as 
real as space and time, in which the motions take place. But we 
cannot justly say that space and time and motion are more real than 
the bodies which move in space and time, or than the appearances 
which these bodies present. 

Thus Plato, with his tendency to exalt Ideas above Facts, — to find 
a Reality which is more real than Phenomena, — to take hold of a 
permanent Truth which is more true than truths of observation, — 



ox PLATO S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 425 

attempts what is impossible. He tries to separate the poles of the 
Fundamental Antithesis, which, however antithetical, are insepa- 
rable. 

At the same time, we must recollect that this tendency to find a 
Reality which is something beyond appearance, a permanence which 
is involved in the changes, is the genuine spring of scientific dis- 
covery. Such a tendency has been the cause of all the astronomical 
science which we possess. It appeared in Plato himself, in Hippar- 
chus, in Ptolemy, in Copernicus, and most eminently in Kepler ; and 
in him perhaps in a manner more accordant with Plato's aspirations 
when he found the five Regular Solids in the Universe, than when 
he found there the Conic Sections which determine the form of the 
planetary orbits. The pursuit of this tendency has been the source 
of the mighty and successful labours of succeeding astronomers : and 
the anticipations of Plato on this head were more true than he him- 
self could have conceived. 

When the above view of the nature of true astronomy has been 
proposed, Glaucon says : 

" That would be a task much more laborious than the astronomy 
now cultivated." Socrates replies : " I believe so : and such tasks 
must be undertaken, if our researches are to be good for any- 
thing." 

After Astronomy, there comes under review another Science, 
which is treated in the same manner. It is presented as one of the 
Sciences which deal with real abstract truth ; and which are there- 
fore suited to that development of the philosophic insight into 
the highest truth, which is here Plato's main object. This Science 
is Harmonics, the doctrine of the mathematical relations of musical 
sounds. Perhaps it may be more diflBcult to explain to a general 
audience, Plato's views on this than on the previous subjects: for 
though Harmonics is still acknowledged as a Science including the 
mathematical truths to which Plato here refers, these truths are less 
generally known than those of geometry or astronomy. Pythagoras 
is reported to have been the discoverer of the cardinal proposition in 
this Mathematics of Music : — namely, that the musical notes which 
the ear recognizes as having that definite and harmonious relation 
which we call an octave, a. fifth, di fourth, a third, have also, in some 
way or other, the numerical relation of 2 to 1, 3 to 2, 4 to 3, 5 to 4. 
I say "some w;iy or other," because the statements of ancient writ- 
ers on this subject are physically inexact, but are right in the essen- 
tial point, that those simple numerical ratios are characteristic of 
the most marked harmonic relations. The numerical ratios really 
represent the rate of vibration of the air when those harmonics 



J 



426 APPENDIX B. 

are produced. This perhaps Plato did not know: but he knew 
or assumed that those numerical ratios were cardinal truths in har- 
mony : and he conceived that the exactness of the ratios rested on 
grounds deeper and more intellectual than any testimony which the 
ear could give. This is the main point in his mode of applying the 
subject, which will be best understood by translating (with some 
abridgement) what he says. Socrates proceeds : 

(§ 11 near the end.) " Motion appears in many aspects. It 
would take a very wise man to enumerate them all : but there are 
two obvious kinds. One which appears in astronomy, (the revolu- 
tions of the heavenly bodies,) and another which is the echo of that^. 
As the eyes are made for Astronomy, so are the ears made for the 
motion which produces Harmony^'': and thus we have two sister 
sciences, as the Pythagoreans teach, and we assent. 

(§ 12.) " To avoid unnecessary labour, let us first learn what 
they can tell us, and see whether anything is to be added to it ; 
retaining our own view on such subjects : namely this: — that those 
whose education we are to superintend — real philosophers — are 
never to learn any imperfect truths : — anything which does not tend 
to that point (exact and permanent truth) to which all our know- 
ledge ought to tend, as we said concerning astronomy. Now 
those who cultivate music take a very different course from this. 
You may see them taking immense pains in measuring musical notes 
and intervals by the ear, as the astronomers measure the heavenly 
motions by the eye. 

"Yes, says Glaucon, they apply their ears close to the instrument, 
as if they could catch the note by getting near to it, and talk of 
some kind of recurrences". Some say they can distinguish an 
interval, and that this is the smallest possible interval, by which 
others are to be measured ; while others say that the two notes are 
identical: both parties alike judging by the ear, not by the 
intellect. 

*' You mean, says Socrates, those fine musicians who torture their 
notes, and screw their pegs, and pinch their strings, and speak of 
the resulting sounds in grand terms of art. "We will leave them, 
and address our inquiries to our other teachers, the Pythagoreans." 

The expressions about the small interval in Glaucon 's speech 
appear to me to refer to a curious question, which we know was 
discussed among the Greek mathematicians, if we take a keyed 



s dvTi(xrpo^ov avrov. '" Trpb? ivapfi.6vi.ov 4>opdv wra nayrvai,. 

'• TTVKVbifiaTa aTTtt. 



ON PLATO S SURVEY OF THE SCIENCES. 427 

instrument, and ascend from a key note by two octaves and a thirds 
(say from Ai to C^ we arrive at the same nominal note, as if we 
ascend four times by & fifth (^1 to E^, E^ to B2, -Sg to F2, F2 to C3). 
Hence one party might call this the same note. But if the Oc- 
taves, Fifths, and Third be perfectly true intervals, the notes 
arrived at in the two ways will not be really the same. (In the one 
case, the note is 2 x 2 >^ t 5 ^" the other f x f x f x | ; which are i 
and 1^, or in the ratio of 81 to 80). This small interval by which 
the two notes really diflfer, the Greeks called a Comma, and it was 
the smallest musical interval which they recognized. Plato disdains 
to see anything important in this controversy; though the con- 
troversy itself is really a curious proof of his doctrine, that there 
is a mathematical truth in Harmony, higher than instrumental 
exactness can reach. He goes on to say : 

'•"The musical teachers are defective in the same way as the 
astronomical. They do indeed seek numbers in the harmonic notes, 
which the ear perceives : but they do not ascend from them to the 
Problem, What are harmonic numbers and what are not, and what 
is the reason of each ^2" p "That, says Glaucon, would be a sub- 
lime inquiry." 

Have we in Harmonics, as in Astronomy, anything in the succeed- 
ing History of the Science which illustrates the tendency of Plato's 
thoughts, and the value of such a tendency ? 

It is plain that the tendency was of the same nature as that which 
induced Kepler to call his work on Astronomy Harmonice Mundi; 
and which led to many of the speculations of that work, in which 
harmonical are mixed with geometrical doctrines. And if we are 
disposed to judge severely of such speculations, as too fanciful for 
sound philosophy, we may recollect that Newton himself seems to 
have been willing to find an analogy between harmonic numbers 
and the different coloured spaces in the spectrum. 

But I will say frankly, that I do not believe there really exists 
any harmonical relation in either of these cases. Nor can the prob- 
lem proposed by Plato be considered as having been solved since his 
time, any further than the recurrence of vibrations, when their ratios 
are so simple, may be easily conceived as affecting the ear in a 
peculiar manner. The imperfection of musical scales, which the 
comma indicates, has not been removed ; but we may say that, in 
the case of this problem, as in the other ultimate Platonic problems, 
the duplication of the cube and the quadrature of the circle, the 



12 TiVes ^vfKfxavoi dpiOixol, &C. 



428 



APPENDIX B. 




impossibility of a solution has been already established. The prob- 
lem of a perfect musical scale is impossible, because no power of 2 
can be equal to a power of 3 ; and if we further take the multiplier 
5, of course it also cannot bring about an exact equality. This impos- 
sibility of a perfect scale being recognized, the practical problem is 
what is the system of temperament which will make the scale best 
suited for musical purposes; and this problem has been very fully 
discussed by modern writers. 



^^^^r 



J 



i 



I 



Appendix BB. 
ON PLATO'S NOTION OF DIALECTIC. 

{Cam. Phil. Soc. May 7, 1855.) 



nPHE survey of the sciences, arithmetic, plane geometry, solid 
-^ geometry, astronomy and harmonics — which is contained in the 
seventh Book of the Republic (§ 6 — 12), and which has been dis- 
cussed in the preceding paper, represents them as instruments in 
an education, of which the end is something much higher — as steps 
in a progression which is to go further. "Do you not know," says 
Socrates (§ 12), "that all this is merely a prelude to the strain 
which we have to learn?" And what that strain is, he forthwith 
proceeds to indicate. "That these sciences do not suffice, you 
must be aware : for — those who are masters of such sciences — do 
they seem to you to be good in dialectic? {Seivoi diaXeKTLKoi 
elvai;)" 

"In truth, says Glaucon, they are not, with very few exceptions, 
so far as I have fallen in with them." 

*'And yet, said I, if persons cannot give and receive a reason, 
they cannot attain that knowledge which, as we have said, men 
ought to have," 

Here it is evident that "to give and to receive a reason," is a 
phrase employed as coinciding, in a general way at least, with being 
"good in dialectic;" and accordingly, this is soon after asserted in 
another form, the verb being now used instead of the adjective. 
"It is dialectic discussion (to 8ia\eyeadai.,) which executes the 
strain which we have been preparing." It is further said that it is 
a progress to clear intellectual light, which corresponds to the pro- 
gress of bodily vision in proceeding from the darkened cave de- 
scribed in the beginning of the Book to the light of day. This 
progress, it is added, of course you call Dialectic {diaXeKTLKjjv). 

Plato further says, that other sciences cannot properly be called 
sciences. They begin from certain assumptions, and give us only 
the consequences which follow from reasoning on such assumptions. 
But these assumptions they cannot prove. To do so is not in the 
province of each science. It belongs to a higher science: to the 



n 



430 APPENDIX BB. 

science of Real Existences. You call the man Dialectical, who re- 
quires a reason of the essence of each thing^. 

And as Dialectic gives an account of other real existences, so 
does it of that most important reality, the true guide of Life and of 
Philosophy, the Real Good, He who cannot follow this through 
all the windings of the battle of Life, knows nothing to any pur- 
pose. And thus Dialectic is the pinnacle, the top stone of the 
edifice of the sciences ^, 

Dialectic is here defined or described by Plato according to the 
subject with which it treats, and the object with which it is to be 
pursued : but in other parts of the Platonic Dialogues, Dialectic 
appears rather to imply a certain method of investigation; — to de- 
scribe the form rather than the matter of discussion ; and it will 
perhaps be worth while to compare these different accounts of 
Dialectic. 

(Phcedrus.) One of the cardinal passages on this Point is in the 
PhEedrus, and may be briefly quoted. Pfaaedrus, in the Dialogue 
which bears his name, appears at first as an admirer of Lysias, a 
celebrated writer of orations, the contemporary of Plato. In order 
to expose this writer's style of composition as frigid and shallow, a 
specimen of it is given, and Socrates not only criticises this, but 
delivers, as rival compositions, two discourses on the same subject. 
Of these discourses, given as the inspiration of the moment, the 
first is animated and vigorous ; the second goes still further, and 
clothes its meaning in a gorgeous dress of poetical and mythical 
images. Phaedrus acknowledges that his favourite is outshone ; 
and Socrates then proceeds to point out that the real superiority of his 
own discourse consists in its having a dialectical structure, beneath 
its outward aspect of imagery and enthusiasm. He says: (§ 109, 
Bekker. It is to be remembered that the subject of all the dis- 
courses was Love, under certain supposed conditions.) 

"The rest of the performance may be taken as play: but there 
were, in what was thus thrown out by a random impulse, two 
features, of which, if any one could reduce the effect to an art, 
it would be a very agreeable and useful task. 
*• "What are they ? Phaedrus asks. 

"In the first place, Socrates replies, the taking a connected view 
of the scattered elements of a subject, so as to bring them into one 



1 'H KoX SiaXeKTLKov fcaXei? tov \6- ^ wa-irep Qpiyyo<; T0t9 fia6^fia<Tt.v 

yov eKOL<rTOV Aaju-jSaVovra tijs oucrias; 17 StaKeKTiK^ r)fj.iv indvu KsicrOai. 

(§ 14). <§ 14). . 



ON PLATO S NOTION OF DIALECTIC. 43 1 

Idea; and thus to give a definition of the subject, so as to make it 
clear what we are speaking of ; as was then done in regard to Love. 
A definition was given of \t, what it is: whether the definition 
was good or bad, at any rate there was a definition. And hence, in 
what followed, we were able to say what was clear and consistent 
with itself. . 

"And what, Phsedrus asks, was the other feature? 
"The dividing the subject into kinds or elements, according to 
the nature of the thing itself: — not breaking its natural mem- 
bers, like a bad carver who cannot hit the joint. So the two dis- 
courses which we have delivered, took the irrational part of the 
mind, as their common subject ; and as the body has two different 
sides, the right and the left, with the same names for its parts ; so 
the two discourses took the irrational portion of man ; and the one 
took the left-hand portion, and divided this again, and again sub- 
divided it, till, among the subdivisions, it found a left-handed kind 
of Love, of which nothing but ill was to be said. While the dis- 
course that followed out the right-hand side of phrenzy, (the 
irrational portion of man's nature,) was led to something which 
bore the name of Love like the other, but which is divine, and was 
praised as the source of the greatest blessing." 

"Now I," Socrates goes on to say, "am a great admirer of these 
processes of division and comprehension, by which I endeavour to 
speak and to think correctly. And if 1 can find any one who is 
able to see clearly what is by nature reducible to one and mani- 
fested in many elements, I follow his footsteps as a divine guide. 
Those who can do this, I call — whether rightly or not, God knows 
— but I have hitherto been in the habit of calling them dialectical 
men." 

It is of no consequence to our present purpose whether either of 
the discourses of Socrates in the Phaedrus, or the two together, as 
is here assumed, do contain a just division and subdivision of that 
part of the human soul which is distinguishable from Reason, and 
do thus exhibit, in its true relations, the affection of Love. It is 
evident that division and subdivision of this kind is here presented 
as, in Plato's opinion, a most valuable method; and those who 
could successfully practise this method are those whom he admires 
as dialectical men. This is here his Dialectic. 

(Sophistes.) "We are naturally led to ask whether this method of 
dividing a subject as the best way of examining it, be in any other 
part of the Platonic Dialogues more fully explained than it is in 
the Phaedrus; or whether any rules are given for this kind of 
Dialectic. 



I 



!* 



:) 



i 



432 APPENDIX BB. 

To this we may reply, that in the Dialogue entitled The Sophist, 
a method of dividing a subject, in order to examine it, is explained 
and exemplified with extraordinary copiousness and ingenuity. 
The object proposed in that Dialogue is, to define what a Sophist 
is ; and with that view, the principal speaker, (who is represented 
as an Eleatic stranger,) begins by first exemplifying what is his 
method of framing a definition, and by applying it to define an 
Angler. The course followed, though it now reads like a burlesque 
of philosophical methods, appears to have been at that time a bona 
fide attempt to be philosophical and methodical. It proceeds thus: 

<' We have to inquire concerning Angling. Is it an Art? It is. 
Now what kind of art ? All art is an art of making or an art of 
getting : (Poietic or Ktetic.) It is Ktetic. Now the art of getting, 
is the art of getting by exchange or by capture: {Metdbletic or 
Chirotic.) Getting by capture is by contest or by chase : {Agonistic 
or Thereutic.) Getting by chase is a chase of lifeless or of living 
things: (the first has no name, the second is Zootheric.) The chase 
of living things is the chase of land animals or of water animals : 
{Pezotheric or Enygrotheric.) Chase of water animals is of birds 
or of fish: {Ornithothereutic and Halieutic.) Chase of fish is by 
inclosing or by striking them : {Hercotheric or Plectic.) We strike 
them by day with pointed instruments, or by night, using torches: 
(hence the division Ankistreutic and Pyreutic.) Of Ankistreutic, one 
kind consists in spearing the fish downwards from above, the other 
in twitching them upwards from below: (these two arts are Trio- 
dontic and Aspalieutic.) And thus we have, what we sought, the 
notion and the description of angling: namely that it is a Ktetic, 
Chirotic, Thereutic, Zootheric, Enygrotheric, Halieutic, Plectic, 
Ankistreutic, Aspalieutic Art." 

Several other examples are given of this ingenious mode of defini- 
tion, but they are all introduced with reference to the definition of 
the Sophist. And it will further illustrate this method to show 
how, according to it, the Sophist is related to the Angler. 

The Sophistical Art is an art of getting, by capture, living things, 
namely men. It is thus a Ktetic, Chirotic, Thereutic art, and so far 
agrees with that of the Angler. But here the two arts diverge, 
since that of the Sophist is Pezotheric, that of the Angler Enygro- 
theric. To determine the Sophist still more exactly, observe that 
the chase of land animals is either of tame animals (including man) 
or of wild animals : (Hemerotheric and Agriotheric. ) The chase of 
tame animals is either by violence, (as kidnapping, tyranny, and war 
in general,) or by persuasion, (as by the arts of speech;) that is, it 
is Biaiotheric or Pithanurgic. The art of persuasion is a private or 



ON PLATO S NOTION OF DIALECTIC. 433 

a public proceeding: (Idiothereutic or Demosiothereutic.) The art of 
private persuasion is accompanied with the giving of presents, (as 
lovers do,) or with the receiving of pay: (thus it is Dorophoric or 
Mistharneutie.) To receive pay as the result of persuasion, is the 
course, either of those who merely earn their bread by supplying 
pleasure, namely flatterers, whose art is Hedyntic ; or of those who 
profess for pay to teach virtue. And who are they ? Plainly the 
Sophists. And thus Sophistic is that kind of Ktetic, Chirotic, 
Thereutic, Zootheric, Pezotheric, Hemerotheric, Pithanurgic, Idio- 
thereutic, Mistharneutie art, which professes to teach virtue, and 
takes money on that account. 

The same process is pursued along several other lines of inqniry : 
and at the end of each of them the Sophist is detected, involved in 
a number of somewhat obnoxious characteristics. This process of 
division it will be observed, is at every step bifurcate, or as it is 
called, dichotomous. Applied as it is in these examples, it is rather 
the vehicle of satire than of philosophy. Yet, I have no doubt that 
this bifurcate method was admired by some of the philosophers of 
Plato's time, as a clever and effective philosophical invention. We 
may the more readily believe this, inasmuch as one of the most acute 
persons of our own time, who has come nearer than any other to 
the ancient heads of sects in the submission with which his followers 
have accepted his doctrines, has taken up this Dichotomous Method, 
and praised it as the only philosophical mode of dividing a sub- 
ject. I refer to Mr Jeremy Bentham's Chrestomathia (published 
originally in 1816), in which this exhaustive bifurcate method, as he 
calls it, was applied to classify sciences and arts, with a view to a 
scheme of education. How exactly the method, as recommended by 
him, agrees with the method illustrated in the SopJiist, an examina- 
tion of any of his examples will show. Thus to take Mineralogy as 
an example: according to Bentham, Ontology is Coenoscopic or 
Idioscopic : the Idioscopic is Somatoscopic or Pneumatoscopic; the 
Somatoscopic is Pososcopic or Poioscopic: Poioscopic is Physiur- 
goscopic or Anthropurgoscopic : Physiurgoscopic is Uranoscopic or 
Epigeoscopic : Epigeoscopic is Abioscopic or Embioscopic. And 
thus Mineralogy is the Science Idioscopic, Somatoscopic, Poioscopic, 
Physiurgoscopic, Epigeoscopic, Abioscopic : inasmuch as it is the 
science which regards bodies, with reference to their qualities, — 
bodies, namely, the works of nature, terrestrial, lifeless. 

I conceive that this bifurcate method is not really philosophical or 
valuable: but that is not our business here. What we have to con- 
sider is whether this is what Plato meant by the term Dialectic. 

The general description of Dialectic in the Sophistes agrees very 

F F 



ri! 





434 APPENDIX BB. 

closely with that quoted from the Phcedrus, that it is the separation 
of a subject according to its natural divisions. 

Thus, see in the Sophist the passage § 83: "To divide a subject 
according to the kinds of things, so as neither to make the same 
kind diiferent nor different kinds identical, is the office of the 
Dialectical Science." And this is illustrated by observing that it 
is the office of the science of Grammar to determine what letters 
may be combined and what may not; it is the office of the science of 
Music to determine what sounds differing as acute and grave, may 
be combined, and what may not : and in like manner it is the office 
of the science of Dialectic to determine what kinds may be com- 
bined in one subject and what may not. And the proof is still fur- 
ther explained. 

In many of the Platonic Dialogues, the Dialectic which Socrates 
is thus represented as approving, appears to include the form of 
Dialogue, as well as the subdivision of the subject into its various 
branches. Socrates is presented as attaching so much importance to 
this form, that in the Protagoras (§ Qo) he rises to depart, because 
his opponent will not conform to this practice. And generally in 
Plato, Dialectic is opposed to Rhetoric, as a string of short ques- 
tions and answers to a continuous dissertation. 

Xenophon also seems to imply {Mem. iv. 5, 11) that Socrates 
included in his notion of Dialectic the form of Dialogue as well as 
the division of the subject. 

But that the method of close Dialogue was not called Dialectic 
by the author of the Sophist, we have good evidence in the work 
itself. Among other notions which are analysed by the bifurcate 
division here exhibited, is that of getting by contest ( Agonistic ^ 
previously given as a division of Ktetic). Now getting by contest 
may be by peaceful trial of superiority, or by fight : {Hamilletic or 
Machetic). The fight may be of body against body, or of words 
against words : these may be called Biastic and Amphisbetic. The 
fight of words about right and wrong, may be by long discourses 
opposed to each other, as in judicial cases; or by short questions 
and answers : the former may be called Dicanic, the latter Anti- 
logic. Of these colloquies, about right and wrong, some are 
natural and spontaneous, others artificial and studied; the former 
need no special name ; the latter are commonly called Eristic. Of 
Eristic colloquies, some are a source of expense to those who hold 
them, some of gain : that is, they are Chrematophthoric or Chrema- 
tistic : the former, the occupation of those who talk for pleasure's 
and for company's sake, is Adoleschic, wasteful garrulity; the 
latter, that of those who talk for the sake of gain, is Sophistic. 



ON PLATO S NOTION OF DIALECTIC. 435 

And thus Sophistic is an art Eristic, which is part of Antilogic, 
which is part of Amphisbetic, which is part of Agonistic, which is 
part of Chirotic, which is a part of Ktetic. (§ 23.) 

We may notice here an indication that satire rather than exact 
reason directs these analyses ; in that Sophistic, which was before 
a part of the thereutic branch of chirotic and ktetic, is here a part of 
the other branch, agonistic. 

But the remark which I especially wish to make here is, that the 
art of discussing points of right and wrong by short questions and 
answers, being here brought into view, is not called Dialectic, 
which we might have expected; but Antilogic. It would seem 
therefore that the Author of the Sophist did not understand by 
Dialectic such a process as Socrates describes in Xenophon ; {Mem. 
rv. 5, 11, 12;) where he says it was called Dialectic, because it was 
followed by persons dividing things into their kinds in conversation: 
(KOLiiy ^ovXeveaduL BiaXeyovTa? :) or such as the Socrates of Plato 
insisted upon in the Protagoras and the Gorgias. Of the two 
elements which the Dialectical Process of Socrates implied, Divi- 
sion of the subject and Dialogue, the author of the Sophistes does 
not claim the name of Dialectic for either, and seems to reject it 
for the second. 

But without insisting upon the name, are we to suppose that the 
Dichotomous Method of the Sophistes Dialogue, (I may add of the 
Politicus, for the method is the same in this Dialogue also,) is the 
method of division of a subject according to its natural members, of 
which Plato speaks in the Phcedrus ? 

If the Sophistes be the work of Plato, the answer is difficult 
either way. If this method be Plato's Dialectic, how came he to 
omit to say so there ? how came he even to seem to deny it ? But 
on the other hand, if this dichotomous division be a diflFerent pro- 
cess from the division called Dialectic in the Phsedrus, had Plato 
two methods of division of a subject ? and yet has he never spoken 
of them as two, or marked their distinction ? 

This difficulty would be removed if we were to adopt the opinion, 
to which others, on other grounds, have been led, that the Sophistes, 
though of Plato's time, is not Plato's work. The grounds of this 
opinion are, — that the doctrines of the Sophistes are not Platonic : 
(the doctrine of Ideas is strongly impugned and weakly defended:) 
Socrates is not the principal speaker, but an Eleatic stranger: and 
there is, in the Dialogue, none of the dramatic character which we 
generally have in Plato. The Dialogue seems to be the work of 
some Eleatic opponent of Plato, rather than his. 

(Rep, B. VII.) But we can have no doubt that the Phcedrus 

FF2 



43 6 APPENDIX BB. 



J 



m^ 



contains Plato's real view of the nature of Dialectic, as to its form; 
let us see how this agrees with the view of Dialectic, as to its 
matter and object, given in the seventh Book of the Republic. 

According to Plato, Real Existences are the objects of the exact 
sciences (as number and figure, of Arithmetic and Geometry). 
The things which are the objects of sense are transitory pheno- 
mena, which have no reality, because no permanence. Dialectic 
deals with Realities in a more general manner. This doctrine is 
everywhere inculcated by Plato, and particularly in this part of the 
I Repuhlic. He does not tell us how we are to obtain a view of the 

! higher realities, which are the objects of Dialectic: only he here 

assumes that it will result from the education which he enjoins. 
He says (§ 13) that the Dialectic Process {n diaKeXTiKv /xidoSo?) 
alone leads to true science : it makes no assumptions, but goes to 
First Principles, that its doctrines may be firmly grounded: and 
thus it purges the eye of the soul, which was immersed in barbaric 
j mud, and turns it upward ; using for this purpose the aid of the 

', sciences which have been mentioned. But when Glaucon inquires 

about the details of this Dialectic, Socrates says he will not then 
answer the inquiry. We may venture to say, that it does not ap- 
pear that he had any answer ready. 

Let us consider for a moment what is said about a philosophy 
rendering a reason for the First Principles of each Science, which 
the Science itself cannot do. That there is room for such a branch 
of philosophy in some sciences, we easily see. Geometry, for 
instance, proceeds from Axioms, Definitions and Postulates ; but by 
the very nature of these terms, does not prove these First Prin- 
ciples. These — the Axioms, Definitions and Postulates, — are, I 
conceive, what Plato here calls the Hypotheses upon which Geo- 
metry proceeds, and for which it is not the business of Geometry to 
render a reason. According to him, it is the business of "Dialec- 
tic" to give a just account of these "Hypotheses." What then is 
Dialectic ? 

(Aristotle.) It is, I think, well worthy of remark, that Aristotle, 
giving an account in many respects different from that of Plato, of 
the nature of Dialectic, is still led in the same manner to consider 
Dialectic as the branch of philosophy which renders a reason for 
First Principles. In the Topics, we have a distinction drawn be- 
tween reasoning demonstrative, and reasoning dialectical: and the 
distinction is this: — (Top. i. 1) that demonstration is by syllogisms 
from true first principles, or from true deductions from such prin- 
ciples ; and that the Dialectical Syllogism is that which syllogizes 
*rom probable propositions (e^ evdo^wi/). And he adds that 



> 



ON PLATO S NOTIOX OF DIALECTIC. 437 

probable propositions are those which are accepted by all, or by the 
greatest part, or by the wise. In the next chapter, he speaks of 
the uses of Dialectic, which, he says, are three, mental discipline, 
debates, and philosophical science. And he adds {Top- i. 2, 6) 
that it is also useful with reference to the First Principles in each 
Science : for from the appropriate Principles of each science we 
cannot deduce anything concerning First Principles, since these 
principles are the beginning of reasoning. But from the probable 
principles in each province of science we must reason concerning 
First Principles : and this is either the peculiar office of Dialectic, 
or the office most appropriate to it ; for it is a process of investigation, 
and must lead to the Principles of all methods. 

That a demonstrative science, as such, does not explain the origin 
of its own First Principles, is undoubtedly true. Geometry does 
not undertake to give a reason for the Axioms, Definitions, and 
Postulates. This has been attempted, both in ancient and in modern 
times, by the Metaphysicians. But the Metaphysics employed on 
such subjects has not commonly been called Dialectic. The term 
has certainly been usually employed rather as describing a Method, 
than as determining the subject of investigation. Of the Faculty 
which apprehends First Principles, both according to Plato and to 
Aristotle, I Avill hereafter say a few words. 

The object of the dichotomous process pursued in the Sophistes, 
and its result in each case, is a Definition. Definition also was one 
of the main features of the inquiries pursued by Socrates, Induction 
being the other ; and indeed in many cases Induction was a series 
of steps v/hich ended in Definition. And Aristotle also taught a 
peculiar method, the object and result of which was the construc- 
tion of Definitions: — namely his Categories. This method is one 
of division, but very different from the divisions of the Sophistes. 
His method begins by dividing the whole subject of possible inquiry 
into ten heads or Categories — Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, 
Place, Time, Position, Habit, Action, Passion. These again are 
subdivided : thus Quality is Habit or Disposition, Power, Affection, 
Form. And we have an example of the application of this method 
to the construction of a Definition in the Ethics ; where he deter- 
mines Virtue to be a Habit with certain additional limitations. 

Thus the Induction of Socrates, the Dichotomy of the Eleatics, 
the Categories of Aristotle, may all be considered as methods by 
which we proceed to the construction of Definitions. If, by any 
method, Plato could proceed to the construction of a Definition, or 
rather of an Idea, -of the Absolute Realities on which First Princi- 
ples depend, such a method would correspond with the notion of 



> 



I 



438 APPENDIX BB. 

Dialectic in the Republic. And if it was a method of division like 
the Eleatic or Aristotelic, it would correspond with the notion of 
Dialectic in the Phcedrus. 

That Plato's notion, however, cannot have been exactly either of 
these is, I think, plain. The colloquial method of stimulating and 
testing the progress of the student in Dialectic is implied, in the 
sequel of this discussion of the effect of scientific study. And the 
method of Dialogue, as the instrument of instruction, being thus 
supposed, the continuation of the account in the Republic, implies 
that Plato expected persons to be made dialectical by the study of 
the exact sciences in a comprehensive spirit. After insisting on 
Geometry and other sciences, he says {Rep. vii. § 16); "The 
synoptical man is dialectical; and he who is not the one, is not 
the other." 

But, we may ask, does a knowledge of sciences lead naturally to 
a knowledge of Ideas, as absolute realities from which First Prin- 
ciples flow ? And supposing this to be true, as the Platonic Phi- 
losophy supposes, is the Idea of the Good, as the source of moral 
truths, to be thus attained to? That it is, is the teaching of 
Plato, here and elsewhere; but have the speculations of subsequent 
philosophers in the same direction given any confirmation of this 
lofty assumption ? 

In reply to this inquiry, I should venture to say, that this 
assumption appears to be a remnant of the Socratic doctrine from 
which Plato began his speculations, that Virtue is a kind of know- 
ledge ; and that all attempts to verify the assumption have failed. 
What Plato added to the Socratic notion was, that the inquiry 
after The Good, the Supreme Good, was to be aided by the 
analogy or suggestions of those sciences which deal with neces- 
sary and eternal truths; the supreme good being of the nature 
of those necessary and eternal truths. This notion is a striking 
one, as a suggestion, but it has always failed, I think, in the 
attempts to work it out. Those who in modern times, as Cudworth 
and Samuel Clarke, have supposed an analogy between the neces- 
sary truths of Geometry and the truths of Morality, though they 
have used the like expressions concerning the one and the other 
class of truths, have failed to convey clear doctrines and steady con- 
victions to their readers; and have now, 1 believe, few or no 
followers. 

The result of our investigation appears to be, that though Plato 
added much to the matter by means of which the mind was to 
be improved and disciplined in its research after Principles and 
Definitions, he did not establish any form of Method according 



ON Plato's notion of dialectic. 439 

to which the inquiry must be conducted, and by which it might 
be aided. The most definite notion of Dialectic still remained 
the same with the original informal view which Socrates had 
taken of it, as Xenophon tells us, {Mem. iv. 5, 11) when he says : 
"He said that Dialectic (to SiaXeyeaQaC) was so called because 
it is an inquiry pursued by persons who take counsel together, 
separating the subjects considered according to their kinds {^la- 
XeyouTas). He held accordingly that men should try to be well 
prepared for such a process^ and should pursue it with diligence : 
by this means, he thought, they would become good men, fitted 
for responsible offices of command, and truly dialectical" {SiaXeK- 
Tt/cajTctTous). And this is, I conceive, the answer to Mr, Grote's 
interrogatory exclamation (Vol. Tin. p. 577): "Surely the Ety- 
mology here given by Xenophon or Socrates of the word (dia- 
Xeyeadai) cannot be considered as satisfactory." The two notions, 
of investigatory Dialogue, and Distribution of notions according 
to their kinds, which are thus asserted to be connected in etymology, 
were, among the followers of Socrates, connected in fact; the 
dialectic dialogue was supposed to involve of course the dialectic 
division of the subject. 



•_ ^ fauji*^ 



i> 



.) 



t 



Appendix C. 

OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWEES ACCOED- 
ING TO PLATO. 

{Gam. Phil Soc. Nov. 10, 1856.) 



TN the Seventh Book of Plato'siJepwiZic, we have certain sciences 
described as the instruments of a philosophical and intellectual 
education ; and we have a certain other intellectual employment 
spoken of, namely, Dialectic^ as the means of carrying the mind 
beyond these sciences, and of enabling it to see the sources of 
those truths which the sciences assume as their fir.^t principles. 
These points have been discussed in the two preceding papers. 
But this scheme of the highest kind of philosophical education 
proceeds upon a certain view of the nature and degrees of knowledge, 
and of the powers by which we know ; which view had been pre- 
sented in a great measure in the Sixth Book; this view I shall 
now attempt to illustrate. 

To analyse the knowing powers of man is a task so diflScult, that 
we need not be surprised if there is much obscurity in this portion 
of Plato's writings. But as a reason for examining what he has 
said, we must recollect that if there be in it anything on this sub- 
ject which was true then, it is true still; and also, that if we know 
any truth on that subject now, we shall find something correspond- 
ing to that truth in the best speculations of sagacious ancient 
writers, like Plato. It may therefore be worth while to discuss 
the Platonic doctrines on this matter, and to inquire how they are 
to be expressed in modern phraseology. 

Plato's doctrine will perhaps be most clearly understood, if we 
begin by considering the diagram by which he illustrates the 
different degrees of knowledge'. He sets out from the distinction 
of visible and intelligible things. There are viable objects, squares 
and triangles, for instance ; but these are not the squares and tri- 
angles about which the Geometer reasons. The exactness of his 
reasoning does not depend on the exactness of his diagrams. He 



1 Pol. vi. § 19. 



OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 44 1 

reasons from certain mental squares and triangles, as he conceives 
and understands them. "Thus there are visible and there are 
intelligible things. There is a visible and an intelligible world ^r 
and there are two different regions about which our knowledge is 
concerned. Now take a line divided into two unequal segments to 
represent these two regions : and again, divide each segment in the 
same ratio. The parts of each segment are to represent differences 
of clearness and distinctness, and in the visible world these parts 
are things and images. By images I mean shadows, and reilections 
in water, and in polished bodies; and by things, I mean that of 
which these images are the resemblances ; as animals, plants, 
things made by man. This difference corresponds to the difference 
of Knowledge and mere Opinion ; and the Opindble is to the Know- 
able as the Image to the Reality." 

This analogy is assented to by Glaucon ; and thus there is as- 
sumed a ground for a further construction of the diagram. 

"Now," he says, ''we have to divide the segment which repre- 
sents Intelligible Things in the same way in which we have divided 
that which represents Visible Things. The one part must repre- 
sent the knowledge which the mind gets by dealing as it were with 
images, and by reasoning downwards from Principles ; the other 
that which it has by dealing with the Ideas themselves, and going 
to First Principles. 

"The one part depends upon assumptions or hypotheses 3, the 
other is unhypothetical or absolute truth. 

"One kind of Intelligible Things, then, is Conceptions; for in- 
stance, geometrical conceptions of figures, by means of which we 
reason downwards, assuming certain First Principles. 

*' Now the other kind of Intelligible Things is this : — that which 
the Reason includes in virtue of its power of reasoning, when it 



2 He adds, " This oraton, this ■vi.si- the three kinds of angles (right, acute, 
ble world, I will not say has any and obtuse) ; and figures, (as a trian- 
connexion with ouranon, heaven, gle, a square,) and the like." I say 
that I may not be accused of playing his "hypotlieses" are the Definitions 
upon words." and Postulates, not the Axioms: for 

3 It is plain that Plato, by Hypo- the Axioms of Arithmetic and Geo- 
theses, in this place, means the usual metry belong to the Higher Faculty, 
foundations of Arithmetic and Geo- which ascends to First Principles, 
metry ; namely, Definitions and Pes- But this Faculty operates rather in 
tulates. He says that " the arith- using these axioms than in enunciat- 
meticians and geometers take as hypo- Lng them. It knows them implicitly 
theses [vnodeiMevoi.) odd and even, and rather than expresses them explicitly. 



442 



APPENDIX C. 



» 



'* 



k 



regards the assumptions of the Sciences as, what they are, assump- 
tions only; and uses them as occasions and starting points, that 
from these it may ascend to the absolute^ (duuTroderou, unhy- 
pothetical,) which does not depend upon assumption, but is the 
origin of scientific truth. The Reason talies hold of this first prin- 
ciple of truth; and availing itself of all the connections and rela- 
tions of this principle, it proceeds to the conclusion ; using no 
sensible image in doing this, but contemplating the Ideas alone ; 
and with these Ideas the process begins, goes on, and terminates." 

This account of the matter will probably seem to require at least 
further explanation ; and that accordingly is acknowledged in the 
Dialogue itself. Glaucon says : 

"I apprehend your meaning in a certain degree, but not very 
clearly, for the matter is somewhat abstruse. You wish to prove 
that the knowledge which, by the Reason, we acquire, of Real 
Existence and Intelligible Things, is of a higher degree of certainty 
than the knowledge which belongs to what are commonly called 
Sciences. Such sciences, you say, have certain assumptions for 
their bases; and these assumptions are, by the students of such 
sciences, apprehended, not by Sense (that is, the Bodily Senses), 
but by a Mental Operation, — by Conception. But inasmuch as 
such students ascend no higher than the assumptions, and do not go 
to the First Principles of Truth, they do not seem to you to have 
true knowledge — intuitive insight — Nous — on the subject of their 
reasonings, though the subjects are intelligible, along with their 
principle. And you call this habit and practice of the Geometers 
and others by the name Conception, not Intuition'^ ; taking Con- 
ception to be something between Opinion on the one side, and 
Intuitive Insight on the other," 

"You have explained it well, said I. And now consider the 
four sections (of the line) of which we have spoken, as corresponding 
to four affections in the mind. Intuition, the highest; Conception, 
the next; the third, Belief; and the fourth, Conjecture (from 
likenesses); and arrange them in order, so that they may have more 
or less of certainty, as their objects have more or less of truth ^. 



^ Sidvotav dW' ov vovv. 

s The Diagram, as here described, would be this: 



Intelligible World. 


VisibU World. 


Intuition. 


Couception. 


Things. 


Images. 



OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 443 

"I understand, said he. I agree to what you say, and I arrange 
them as you direct." 

And so the Sixth Book ends: and the Seventh Book opens 
with the celebrated image of the Cave, in which men are confined, 
and see all external objects only by the shadows which they cast 
on the walls of their prison. And this imperfect knowledge of 
things is to the true vision of them, which is attained by those 
who ascend to the light of day, as the ordinary knowledge of men is 
to the knowledge attainable by those whose minds are purged and 
illuminated by a true philosophy. 

Confining ourselves at present to the part of Plato's speculations 
which we have mentioned, namely, the degrees of knowledge, 
and the division of our knovnng faculties, we may understand, 
and may in a great degree accept, Plato's scheme. "We have already 
(in the preceding papers) seen that, by the knowledge of real 
things, he means, in the first place, the knowledge of universal 
and necessary truths, such as Geometry and the other exact sciences 
deal with. These we call sciences of Demonstration; and we 
are in the habit of contrasting the knowledge which constitutes 
such sciences with the knowledge obtained by the Senses, by Ex- 
perience or mere Observation. This distinction of Demonstrative 
and Empirical knowledge is a cardinal point in Plato's scheme 
also ; the former alone being allowed to deserve the name of 
Knowledge, and the latter being only Opinion. The Objects with 
■which Demonstration deals may be termed Conceptions, and the 
objects with which Observation or Sense has to do, however 
much speculation may reduce them to mere Sensations, are commonly 
described as Things. Of these Things, there may be Shadows or 
Images, as Plato says ; and as we may obtain a certain kind of 
knowledge, namely Opinion or Belief, by seeing the Things them- 
selves, we may obtain an inferior kind of Opinion or Belief by seeing 
their Images, which kind of opinion we may for the moment call 
Conjecture. Whether then we regai'd the distinctions of knowledge 
itself or of the objects of it, we have three terms before us. 

If we consider the kinds of knowledge, they are 

Demonstration: Belief: Conjecture: 

If the objects of this knowledge, they are 

Conceptions : Things : Images. 



Plato supposes the whole, and each of the two parts, to be divided in the 
same ratio, in order that the analogy of the division in each case may be 
represented. 



Mil 



444 APPENDIX C. 

But in each of these Series, the first term is evidently wanting : for 
Demonstration supposes Principles to reason from. Conceptions 
suppose some basis in the mind which gives them their evidence. 
What then is the first term in each of these two Series ? 

The Principles of Demonstration must be seen by Intuition, 

Conceptions derive their properties from certain powers or 
attributes of the mind which we may term Ideas. 

Therefore the two series are 

Intuition: Demonstration: Belief: Conjecture. 
Ideas: Conceptions: Things: Images. 
Plato further teaches that the two former terms in each Series 
belong to the Intelligible, the two latter to the Visible World: 
and he supposes that the ratio of these two primary segments 
of the line is the same as the ratio in which each segment is 
divided^. 

In using the term Ideas to describe the mental sources from 
which Conceptions derive their validity in demonstration, I am 
employing a phraseology which I have already introduced in the 
Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. But independently altogether 
of this, I do not see what other term could be employed to denote 
the mental objects, attributes, or powers, whatever they be, from 
which Conceptions derive their evidence, as Demonstrative Truths 
derive their evidence from Intuitive Truths. 

That the Scheme just presented is Plato's doctrine on this subject, 
I do not conceive there can be any doubt. There is a little want 
of precision in his phraseology, arising from his mixing together 
the two series. In fact, his final series 

Notsis : Dianoia: Pistis: Eikasia; 
is made by putting in the second place, instead of Demonstration, 
which is the process pursued, or Science, which is the knowledge 
obtained, Conception, which is the object with which the mind 
deals. Such deviations from exact symmetry and correlation in 
speaking of the faculties of the mind, are almost unavoidable in 
every language. And there is yet another source of such inac- 
curacies of language; for we have to speak, not only of the 
process of acquiring knowledge, and of the objects with which 
the mind deals, but of the Faculties of the mind which are 
thus employed. Thus Intuition is the Process; Ideas are the 



6 The four segments might be as 4 : 2 : 2 : i ; or as 9 : 6 : 6 : 4; or generally, 
asa : ar :ar : wfi. 



OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 445 

Object, in the first term of our series. The Faculty also we 
may call Irduition; but the Greek offers a distinction. Notsis 
is the Process of Intuition; but the Faculty is Nous. If we 
wish to preserve this distinction in English, what must we call 
the Faculty? I conceive we must call it the Intuitive Reason^ a 
term well known to our older philosophical writers 7. Again: 
taking the second term of the series, Demonstration is the process, 
Science, the result; and Conceptions are the objects with which 
the mind deals. But what is the Faculty thus employed? What 
is the Faculty employed in Demonstration? The same philosophical 
writers of whom I spoke would have answered at once, the Dis- 
cursive Reason; and I do not know that, even now, we can suggest 
any better term. The Faculty employed in acquiring the two lower 
kinds of knowledge, the Faculty which deals with Things and 
their Images is, of course, Sense, or Sensation. 

The assertion of a Faculty of the mind by which it appre- 
hends Truth, which Faculty is higher than the Discursive Reason, 
as the Truth apprehended by it is higher than mere Demonstrative 
Truth, agrees (as it will at once occur to several of my readers) 
with the doctrine taught and insisted upon by the late Samuel 
Taylor Coleridge. And so far as he was the means of inculcating 
this doctrine, which, as we see, is tlie doctrine of Plato, and I 
might add, of Aristotle, and of many other philosophers, let him 
have due honour. But in his desire to impress the doctrine upon 
men's minds, he combined it with several other tenets, which will 
not bear examination. He held that the two Faculties by which 
these two kinds of truth are apprehended, and which, as I have 
said, our philosophical writers call the Intuitive Reason and the 
Discursive Reason, may be called, and ought to be called, respectively, 
The Reason and The Understanding ; and that the second of these 
is of the nature of the Instinct of animals, so as to be something 
intermediate between Reason and Instinct. These opinions, I may 
venture to say, are altogether erroneous. The Intuitive Reason and 
the Discursive Reason are not, by any English writers, called the 
Reason and the Understanding; and accordingly, Coleridge has 
had to alter all the passages, namely, those taken from Leightonj 
Harrington, and Bacon, from which his exposition proceeds. The 
Understanding is so far from being especially the Discursive or 



Hence the mind Reason receives 
Intuitive or Discursive. 

Milton. 



446 



APPENDIX C. 






I 



Reasoning Faculty, that it is, in universal usage, and by our best 
writers, opposed to the Discursive or Reasoning Faculty. Thus this 
is expressly declared by Sir John Davis in his poem On the Immor- 
tality of the Soul. He says, of the soul, 

When she rates things, and moves from ground to ground, 
The name of Reason (Ratio) she acquires from this : 

But when by reason she truth hath found, 
And standeth fixt, she Understanding is. 

Instead of the Reason being fixed, and the Understanding discur- 
sive, as Mr. Coleridge says, the Reason is distinctively discursive; 
that is, it obtains conclusions by running from one point to another. 
This is what is meant by Discursus ; or, taking the full term, Dis- 
cursus Rationis, Discourse of Reason. Understanding is fixed, that 
is, it dwells upon one view of a subject, and not upon the steps by 
which that view is obtained. The verb to reason, implies the sub- 
stantive, the Reason, though it is not coextensive with it : for as I 
have said, there is the Intuitive Reason as well as the Discursive 
Reason. But it is by the Faculty of Reason that we are capable of 
reasoning; though undoubtedly the practice or the pretence of rea- 
soning may be carried so far as to seem at variance with reason in 
the more familiar sense of the term ; as is the case also in French. 
Moliere's Crisale says (in the Femmes Savantes), 

Eaisonner est I'emploi de toute ma maison, 
Et le raisonnement en bannit la Kaison. 

If Mr. Coleridge's assertion were true, that the Understanding is 
the discursive and the Reason the fixed faculty, we should be justi- 
fied in saying that The Understanding is the faculty by which we 
reason, and the Reason is the faculty by which we understand. But 
this is not so. 

Nor is the Understanding of the nature of Instinct, nor does it 
approach nearer than the Reason to the nature of Instinct, but the 
contrary. The Instincts of animals bear a very obscure resem- 
blance to any of man's speculative Faculties; but so far as there is 
any such resemblance, Instinct is an obscure image of Reason, not 
of Understanding. Animals are said to act as if they reasoned, 
rather than as if they understood. The verb understand is especially 
applied to man as distinguished from animals. Mr. Coleridge tells 
a tale from Huber, of certain bees which, to prevent a piece of 
honey from falling, balanced it by their weight, while they built a 
pillar to support it. They did this by Instinct, not understanding 
what they did ; men, doing the same, would have understood what 
they were doing. Our Translation of the Scriptures, in making 



mk 



OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS. 447 

it the special distinction of man and animals, that he has Under- 
standing and they have not, speaks quite consistently with good 
philosophy and good English, 

Mr. Coleridge's object in his speculations is nearly the same as 
Plato's; namely, to declare that there is a truth of a higher kind 
than can be obtained by mere reasoning; and also to claim, as por- 
tions of this higher truth, certain fundamental doctrines of Morality. 
Among these, Sir. Coleridge places the Authority of Conscience, 
and Plato, the Supreme Good. Mr. Coleridge also holds, as Plato 
held, that the Reason of man, in its highest and most comprehensive 
form, is a portion of a Supreme and Universal Reason; and leads to 
Truth, not in virtue of its special attributes in each person, but by 
its own nature. 

Many of the opinions which are combined with these doctrines, 
both in Plato and in Coleridge, are such as we should, I think, find 
it impossible to accept, upon a careful philosophical examination of 
them ; but on these I shall not here dwell. 

I will only further observe, that if any one were to doubt whether 
the term Novs is rightly rendered Intuitive Reason, we may find 
proof of the propriety of such a rendering in the remarkable discus- 
sion concerning the Intellectual Virtues, which we have in the 
Sixth Book of the Nicomachean Ethics. It can hardly be question- 
ed that Aristotle had in his mind, in -m-iting that passage, the 
doctrines of Plato, as expounded in the passage just examined, and 
similar passages. Aristotle there says that there are five Intellec- 
tual Virtues, or Faculties by which the Mind aims at Truth in 
asserting or denying : — namely. Art, Science, Prudence, Wisdom, 
Nous. In this enumeration, passing over Art, Prudence, and Wis- 
dom, as virtues which are mainly concerned from practical life, we 
have, in the region of speculative Truth, a distinction propounded 
between Science andA^ow^; and this distinction is further explained 
(c. 6) by the remarks that Science reasons with Principles ; and that 
these Principles cannot be given hy Science, because Science reasons 
from them; nor by Art, nor Prudence, for these are conversant with 
matters contingent, not with matters demonstrable; nor can the 
First Principles of the Reasonings of Science be given by Wisdom, 
for Wisdom herself has often to reason from Principles. Therefore 
the First Principles of Demonstrative Reasoning must be given by 
a peculiar Faculty, Nous. As we have said. Intuitive Reason is the 
most appropriate English term for this Faculty. 

The view thus given of that higher kind of Knowledge vphich 
Plato and Aristotle place above ordinary Science, as being the 
Knowledge of and Faculty of learning First Principles, will enable 



448 



APPENDIX C. 



! If 




us to explaiiLjSome expressions which might otherwise be misunder- 
stood. Socrates, in the concluding part of this Sixth Book of the 
Republic, says, that this kind of knowledge is " that of which the 
Reason (Xoyos) takes hold, in virtue of its power of reasoning^ ^ 
Here we are plainly not to understand that we arrive at First Prin- 
ciples hy reasoning : for the very opposite is true, and is here taught ; 
— namely, that First Principles are not what we reason to, but what 
we reason y>07n. The meaning of this passage plainly is, that First 
Principles are those of which the Reason takes hold in virtue of its 
poiver of reasoning ; — they are the conditions which must exist in 
order to make any reasoning possible : — they are the propositions 
which the Reason must involve implicitly, in order that we may 
reason explicitly; — they are the intuitive roots of the dialectical 
power. 

In accordance with the views now explained, Plato's Diagram 
may be thus further expanded. The term Uia is not used in this 
part of the Republic ; but, as is well known, occurs in its peculiar 
Platonic sense in the Tenth Book. 





Intelligible World, vo-^tov. 


Visible World, bparov. 


Ohjed . . 


Ideas « 
iSeat 


Conceptions 
SidvoLa 


Things 
^wa K.T.A., 


Images 


Process . 


Intuition 


Demonstration 
eTTKTTrJjarj 


Belief 

TTtCTTtS 


Conjecture 
et/ca<n'a 


Faculty. 


Intuitive Reason 

J/OVS 


Discursive Reason 
Ao-yoff 


Sensation 



TJJ Tov SioAe'yea^at Swc^jj-ei, 



I 



(iM 



Appendix D. 

CRITICISM OF ARISTOTLE'S ACCOUNT OF 
INDUCTION 

(Cam, Phil Soc. Feb, 11, 1850.) 



'T'HE Cambridge Philosophical Society has willingly admitted 
-*- among its proceedings not only contributions to science, but also 
to the philosophy of science; and it is to be presumed that this 
■mllingness will not be less if the speculations concerning the philo- 
sophy of science which are offered to the Society involve a reference 
to ancient authors. Induction, the process by which general truths 
are collected from particular examples, is one main point in such 
philosophy : and the comparison of the views of Induction enter- 
tained by ancient and modem writers has already attracted much 
notice. I do not intend now to go into this subject at any length ; 
but there is a cardinal passage on the subject in Aristotle's Analytics, 
{Analyt. Prior, ii. 25) which I wish to explain and discuss. I will 
first translate it, making such emendations as are requisite to render 
it intelligible and consistent, of which I shaU afterwards give an 
account. 

I will number the sentences of this chapter of Aristotle in order 
that I may afterwards be able to refer to them readily. 

§ 1. " We must now proceed to observe that we have to examine 
not only syllogisms according to the aforesaid figures, — syllogisms 
logical and demonstrative, — but also rhetorical syllogisms,— and, 
speaking generally, any kind of proof by which belief is influenced, 
following any method. 

§ 2. " All belief arises either from Syllogism or from Induction : 
[we must now therefore treat of Induction.] 

§ 3. " Induction, and the Inductive Syllogism, is when by means of 
one extreme term we infer the other extreme term to be true of the 
middle term. 

§ 4. ** Thus if A, C, be the extremes, and B the mean, we have 
to show, by means of C, that A is true of B, 

6 a 



I 



450 APPENDIX D. 

§5. "Thus let A be long-lived; B, that wliicli has no gall- 
bladder ; and C, particular long-lived animals, as elephant, horse, 
mule. 

§ 6. " Then every C is A, for all the animals above named are 
long-lived. 

§ 7. " Also every C is B, for all those animals are destitute of 
gall-bladder. 

§ 8. "If then B and C are convertible, and the mean (B) does 
not extend further than extreme (C), it necessarily follows that 
every JS is ^. 

§ 9. "Por it was shown before, that, if any two things be 
true of the same, and if either of them be convertible with the ex- 
treme, the other of the things predicated is true of the convertible 
(extreme). 

§ 10. " But we must conceive that C consists of a collection of 
all the particular cases; for Induction is applied to all the cases. 

§ 11. " But such a syllogism is an inference of a first truth and 
immediate proposition. 

§ 12. "For when there is a mean term, there is a demonstrative 
syllogism through the mean ; but when there is not a mean, there is 
proof by Induction. 

§ 13. " And in a certain way, Induction is contrary to Syllogism ; 
for Syllogism proves, by the middle term, that the extreme is true of 
the third thing : but Induction proves, by means of the third thing, 
that the extreme is true of the mean. 

§ 14. " And Syllogism concluding by means of a middle term is 
prior by nature and more usual to us ; but the proof by Induction, 
is more luminous." 

I think that the chapter, thus interpreted, is quite coherent and 
intelligible; although at first there seems to be some confusion, 
from the author sometimes saying that Induction is a kind of Syllo- 
gism, and at other times that it is not. The amount of the doctrine 
is this. 

When we collect a general proposition by Induction from par- 
ticular cases, as for instance, that all animals destitute of gall- 
bladder {acholous), are long-lived, (if this proposition were true, of 
which hereafter,) we may express the process in the form of a Syllo- 
gism, if we will agree to make a collection of particular cases our 
middle term, and assume that the proposition in which the second 
extreme term occurs is convertible. Thus the known propositions 
are 

Elephant, horse, mule, &c., are long-lived. 
Elephant, horse, mule, &c., are acholous. 



CRITICISM OF ARISTOTLE S INDUCTION. 45 1 

But if we suppose that the latter proposition is convertible, we 
shall have these propositions : 

Elephant, horse, mule, &c., are long-lived. 

All acholous animals are elephant, horse, mule, &c., 
from whence we infer, quite rigorously as to form, 

All acholous animals are long-lived. 
This mode of putting the Inductive inference shows both the 
strong and the weak point of the illustration of Induction by means 
of Syllogism. The strong point is this, that we make the inference 
perfect as to form, by including an indefinite collection of particular 
cases, elephant, horse, mule, &c., in a single term, C. The Syllo- 
gism then is 

All C are long-lived. 

All acholous animals are C. 

Therefore all acholous animals are long-lived. 
The weak point of this illustration is, that, at least in some 
instances, when the number of actual cases is necessarily indefinite, 
the representation of them as a single thing involves an unauthorized 
step. In order to give the reasoning which really passes in the 
mind, we must say 

Elephant, horse, &c., are long-lived. 

All acholous animals are as elephant, horse, &c., 

Therefore all acholous animals are long-lived. 
This "as" must be introduced in order that the ''all C" of the 
first proposition may be justified by the *'C" of the second. 

This step is, I say, necessarily unauthorized, where the number of 
particular cases is indefinite ; as in the instance before us, the species 
of acholous animals. "We do not know how many such species there 
are, yet we wish to be able to assert that all acholous animals are 
long-lived. In the proof of such a proposition, put in a syllogistic 
form, there must necessarily be a logical defect; and the above dis- 
cussion shows that this defect is the substitution of the proposition, 
*' All acholous animals are as elephant, &c.," for the converse of 
the experimentally proved proposition, " elephant, &c., are acholous." 
In instances in which the number of particular cases is limited, 
the necessary existence of a logical flaw in the syllogistic translation 
of the process is not so evident. But in truth, such a flaw exists in 
all cases of Induction proper : (for Induction by mere enumeration 
can hardly be called Induction). I will, however, consider for a 
moment the instance of a celebrated proposition which has often 
been taken as an example of Induction, and in which the number of 
particular cases is, or at least is at present supposed to be, limited, 
Kepler's laws, for instance the law that the planets describe ellipses, 

G G 2 



n 




J 



i 



452 APPENDIX D. 

may be regarded as examples of Induction. The law was inferred, 
we will suppose, from an examination of the orbits of Mars, Earth, 
Venus. And the syllogistic illustration which Aristotle gives, will, 
with the necessary addition to it, stand thus, 

Mars, Earth, Venus describe ellipses. 

Mars, Earth, Venus are planets. 
Assuming the convertibility of this last proposition, and its univer- 
sality, (which is the necessary addition in order to make Aristotle's 
syllogism valid) we say 

All the planets are as Mars, Earth, Venus. 
Whence it follows that all the planets describe ellipses. 

If, instead of this assumed universality, the astronomer had made 
a real enumeration, and had established the fact of each particular, 
he would be able to say 

Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury, describe 
ellipses. 

Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, Venus, Mercury are all the 
planets. 
And he would obviously be entitled to convert the second proposi- 
tion, and then to conclude that 

All the planets describe ellipses. 
But then, if this were given as an illustration of Induction by 
means of syllogism, we should have to remark, in the first place, that 
the conclusion that ** all the planets describe ellipses," adds nothing 
to the major proposition, that '* S., J., M., E., V., m., do so." It is 
merely the same proposition expressed in other words, so long as 
S., J., M., E., v., m., are supposed to be all the planets. And in 
the next place we have to make a remark which is more important ; 
that the minor, in such an example, must generally be either a very 
precarious truth, or, as appears in this case, a transitory error. For 
that the planets known at any time are all the planets, must always, 
be a doubtful assertion, liable to be overthrown to-night by an astro- 
nomical observation. And the assertion, as received in Kepler's 
time, has been overthrown. For Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Earth, 
Venus, Mercury, are not all the planets. Not only have several new 
ones been discovered at intervals, as Uranus, Ceres, Juno, Pallas, 
Vesta, but we have new ones discovered every day ; and any conclu- 
sion depending upon this premiss that A, B, C, D, £", F, G, H, to 
Z are all the planets, is likely to be falsified in a few years by the 
discovery of A', B\ C\ &c. If, therefore, this were the syllogistic 
analysis of Induction, Kepler's discovery rested upon a false propo- 
sition ; and even if the analysis were now made conformable to our 
present knowledge, that induction, analysedjas above, would still 



CRITICISM OF ARISTOTLE S INDUCTION. 453 

involve a proposition which to-morrow may show to be false. But 
yet no one, I suppose, doubts that Kepler's discovery was really a 
discovery — the establishment of a scientific truth on solid grounds; 
or, that it is a scientific truth for us, notwithstanding that we are 
constantly discovering new planets. Therefore the syllogistic ana- 
lysis of it now discussed (namely, that which introduces simple enu- 
meration as a step) is not the right analysis, and does not represent 
the grounds of the Inductive Truth, that all the planets describe 
ellipses. 

It may be said that all the planets discovered since Kepler's time 
conform to his law, and thus confirm his discovery. This we grant : 
but they only confirm the discovery, they do not make it ; they are 
not its groundwork. It was a discovery before these new cases 
were known; it was an inductive truth without them. Still, an 
objector might urge, if any one of these new planets had contradict- 
ed the law, it would have overturned the discovery. But this is too 
boldly said. A discovery which is so precise, so complex (in the 
phenomena which it explains), so supported by innumerable observa- 
tions extending through space and time, is not so easily overturned . 
If we find that Uranus, or that Encke's comet, deviates from Kep- 
ler's and Newton's laws, we do not infer that these laws must be 
false; we say that there must be some disturbing cause in these 
cases. We seek, and we find these disturbing causes : in the case of 
Uranus, a new planet; in the case of Encke's comet, a resisting 
medium. Even in this case therefore, though the number of parti- 
culars is limited, the Induction was not made by a simple enumera- 
tion of all the particulars. It was made from a few cases, and when 
the law was discerned to be true in these, it was extended to all; the 
conversion and assumed universality of the proposition that " these 
are planets," giving us the proposition which we need for the syllo- 
gistic exhibition of Induction, "all the planets are as these." 

I venture to say further, that it is plain, that Aristotle did not 
regard Induction as the result of simple enumeration. This is plain, 
in the first place, from his example. Any proposition with regard 
to a special class of animals, cannot be proved by simple enumera- 
tion : for the number of particular cases, that is, of animal species 
in the class, is indefinite at any period of zoological discovery, and 
must be regarded as infinite. In the next place, Aristotle says (§ 10 
of the above extract), "We must conceive that C consists of a col- 
lection of all the particular cases ; for induction is applied to all the 
cases." We must conceive {voelv) that C in the major, consists of all 
the cases, in order that the conclusion may be true of all the cases ; 
but we cannot observe all the cases. But the evident proof that 
Aristotle does not contemplate in this chapter an Induction by sira- 



454 APPENDIX D. 

pie enumeration, is the contrast in which he places Induction and 
Syllogism. For Induction by simple enumeration stands in no con- 
trast to Syllogism. The Syllogism of such Induction is quite logi- 
cal and conclusive. But Induction from a comparatively small num- 
ber of particular cases to a general law, does stand in opposition 
to Syllogism. It gives us a truth, — a truth which, as Aristotle 
says (§ 14), is more luminous than a truth proved syllogistically, 
though Syllogism may be more natural and usual. It gives us (§ 11) 
immediate propositions, obtained directly from observation, and not 
by a chain of reasoning : *' first truths," the principles from which 
syllogistic reasonings may be deduced. The Syllogism proves by 
means of a middle term (§ 13) that the extreme is true of a third 
thing : thus, {acholous being the middle term) : 

Acholous animals are long-lived : 

All elephants are acholous animals : 

Therefore all elephants are long-lived. 
But Induction proves by means of a third thing (namely, particular 
cases) that the extreme is true of the mean; thus {acholous, still 
being the middle term) 

Elephants are long-lived : 

Elephants are acholous animals : 

Therefore acholous animals are long-lived. 
It may be objected, such reasoning as this is quite inconclusive : 
and the answer is, that this is precisely what we, and as I believe, 
Aristotle, are here pointing out. Induction is inconclusive as rea- 
soning. It is not reasoning: it is another way of getting at truth. 
As we have seen, no reasoning can prove such an inductive truth as 
this, that all planets describe ellipses. It is known from observation, 
but it is not demonstrated. Nevertheless, no one doubts its uni- 
versal truth, (except, as aforesaid, when disturbing causes intervene). 
And thence, Induction is, as Aristotle says, opposed to syllogistic 
reasoning, and yet is a means of discovering truth : not only so, but 
a means of discovering primary truths, immediately derived from 
observation. 

I have elsewhere taught that all Induction involves a Conception 
of the mind applied to facts. It may be asked whether this applies 
in such a case as that given by Aristotle. And I reply, that 
Aristotle's instance is a very instructive example of what I mean. 
The Conception which is applied to the facts in order to make the 
induction possible is the want of the gall-bladder; — and Aristotle 
supplies us with a special term for this conception ; acholous^. But, 



1 This term occurs in other parts of Aristotle. See the additional NotOk 



I '" 



CRITICISM OF Aristotle's induction. 455 

it may be said, that the animals observed, the elephant, horse, mule, 
&c., are acholous, is a mere fact of observation, not a Conception. 
I reply that it is a Selected Fact, a fact selected and compared in 
several cases, which is what we mean by a Conception. That there 
is needed for such selection and comparison a certain activity of the 
mind, is evident; but this also may become more clear by dwelling 
a little further on the subject. Suppose that Aristotle, having a 
desire to know what class of animals are long-lived, had dissected 
for that purpose many animals; elephants, horses, cows, sheep, 
goats, deer and the like. How many resemblances, how many dif- 
ferences, must he have observed in their anatomy ! He was very 
likely long in fixing upon any one resemblance which was common 
to all the long-lived. Probably he tried several other characters, 
before he tried the presence and absence of the gall-bladder : — per- 
haps, trying such characters, he found them succeed for a few cases, 
and then fail in others, so that he had to reject them as useless for 
his purpose. All the while, the absence of the gall-bladder in the 
long-lived animals was a fact : but it was of no use to him, because 
he had not selected it and drawn it forth from the mass of other 
facts. He was looking for a mean term to connect his first extreme, 
long-lived, with his second, the special cases. He sought this mid- 
dle term in the entrails of the many animals which he used as 
extremes : it was there, but he could not find it. The fact existed, 
but it was of no use for the purpose of Induction, because it did 
not become a special Conception in his mind. He considered the 
animals in various points of view, it may be, as ruminant, as 
horned, as hoofed, and the contrary; but not as acholous and the 
contrary. "When he looked at animals in that point of view, — 
when he took up that character as the ground of distinction, he 
forthwith imagined that he found a separation of long-lived and 
short-lived animals. "When that Fact became a Conception, he ob- 
tained an inductive truth, or, at any rate, an inductive proposition. 
He obtained an inductive proposition by applying the Conception 
acholous to his observation of animals. This Conception divided 
them into two classes; and these classes were, he fancied, long-lived 
and short-lived respectively. That it was the Conception, and not 
the Fact which enabled him to obtain his inductive proposition, is 
further plain from this, that the supposed Fact is not a fact. 
Acholous animals are not longer-lived than others. The presence 
or absence of the gall-bladder is no character of longevity. It is 
true, that in one familiar class of animals, the herbivorous kind, 
there is a sort of first seeming of the truth of Aristotle's asserted 
rule : for the horse and mule which have not the gall-bladder are 



# 



456 APPENDIX D. 

longer-lived than the cow, sheep, and goat, which have it. But if 
we pursue the investigation further, the rule soon fails. The deer- 
tribe that want the gall-bladder are not longer-lived than the other 
ruminating animals which have it. And as a conspicuous evidence 
of the falsity of the rule, man and the elephant are perhaps, for 
their size, the longest-lived animals, and of these, man has, and the 
elephant has not, the organ in question. The inductive proposition, 
then, is false; but what we have mainly to consider is, where the 
fallacy enters, according to Aristotle's analysis of Induction into 
Syllogism. For the two premisses are still true ; that elephants, &c., 
j I j are long-lived ; and that elephants, &c., are acholous. And it is 

plain that the fallacy comes in with that conversion and generaliza- 
tion of the latter proposition, which we have noted as necessary to 
Aristotle's illustration of Induction. When we say "All acholous 
animals are as elephants, &c.," that is, as those in their biological 
' i conditions, we say what is not true. Aristotle's condition (§ 8) is 

tl^ J^^HBK'. not complied with, that the middle term shall not extend beyond 

^H^^^H| the extreme. For the character acholous does extend beyond the 

T^^^^^L elephant and the animals biologically resembling it; it extends to 

deer, &c., which are not like elephants and horses, in the point in 
question. And thus, we see that the assumed conversion and 
generalization of the minor proposition, is the seat of the fallacy of 
false Inductions, as it is the seat of the peculiar logical character of 

J true Inductions. 

] As true Inductive Propositions cannot be logically demonstrated 

j by syllogistic rules, so they cannot be discovered by any rule. There 

^ ' is no formula for the discovery of inductive truth. It is caught by 

a peculiar sagacity, or power of divination, for which no precepts 
can be given. But from what has been said, we see that this saga- 
city shows itself in the discovery of propositions which are both 
true, and convertible in the sense above explained. Both these steps 
( ^ may be difficult. The former is often very laborious : and when the 

labour has been expended, and a true proposition obtained, it may 
turn out useless, because the proposition is not convertible. It was 
a matter of great labour to Kepler to prove (from calculation of 
observations) that Mars moves elliptically. Before he proved this, 
he had tried to prove many similar propositions : — that Mars moved 
according to the "bisection of the eccentricity," — according to the 
1^ "vicarious hypothesis," — according to the "physical hypothesis," — 

and the like ; but none of these was found to be exactly true. The 
proposition that Mars moves elliptically was proved to be true. 
But still, there was the question. Is it convertible? Do all the 
planets move as Mars moves? This was proved, (suppose,) to be 



I 



CRITICISM OF ARISTOTLE S INDUCTION. 457 

true, for the Earth and Venus. But still the question remains, Do 
all the planets move as Mars, Earth, Yenus, do? The inductive 
generalizing impulse boldly ansveers, Yes, to this question; though 
the rules of Syllogism do not authorize the answer, and though there 
remain untried cases. The inductive Philosopher tries the cases as 
fast as they occur, in order to confirm his previous conviction; but 
if he had to wait for belief and conviction till he had tried every 
case, he never could have belief or conviction of such a proposition 
at all. He is prepared to modify or add to his inductive truth 
according as new cases and new observations instruct him ; but he 
does not fear that new cases or new observations will overturn an 
inductive proposition established by exact comparison of many com- 
plex and various phenomena. 

Aristotle's example offers somewhat similar reflections. He had 
to establish a proposition concerning long-lived animals, which 
should be true, and should be susceptible of generalized conversion. 
To prove that the elephant, horse and mule are destitute of gall- 
bladder required, at least, the labour of anatomizing those animals 
in the seat of that organ. But this labour was not enough ; for he 
would find those animals to agree in many other things besides in 
being acholous. He must have selected that character somewhat at 
a venture. And the guess was wrong, as a little more labour would 
have shown him ; if for instance he had dissected deer : for they are 
acholous, and yet short-lived. A trial of this kind would have shown 
him that the extreme term, acholous, did extend beyond the mean, 
namely, animals such as elephant, horse, mule ; and therefore, that 
the conversion was not allowable, and that the Induction was unten- 
able. In truth, there is no relation between bile and longevity 2, 
and this example given by Aristotle of generalization from induction 
is an unfortunate one. 



2 Mr, Owen, to whom I am in- intestine: there is no relation be- 
debted for the physiological part of tween natural longevity and bile, 
this criticism, tells me, " All mam- Neither has the presence or absence 
maha have bile, the camivora in of the gaU-bladder any connexion 
greater proportion than the herbi- with age. Man and the elephant are 
vora : the gall-bladder is a compara- perhaps for their size the longest 
tively unimportant accessory to the lived animals, and the latest at com- 
biliary apparatus; adjusting it to ing to maturity: one has the gall- 
certain modifications of stomach and bladder, and the other not." 



45^ APPENDIX D. 



i 



In discussing this passage of Aristotle, I have made two altera- 
tions in the text, one of which is necessary on account of the fact ; 
the other on account of the sense. In the received text, the parti- 
cular examples of long-lived animals given are man, horse, and mule 
(e0' CO 8e r, TO KaQeKacTTOV fxaKpn^iov, olov dudpcoTTO^, /cat iV'Troy, 
Kai jj/xioi/os). And it is afterwards said that all these are acholous: 
(aWa Kal to B, to fxti e^ov j^oATjy, iravTl virdp^ei tw F.) But 
man has a gall-bladder : and the fact was well known in Aristotle's 
time, for instance, to Hippocrates ; so that it is not likely that 
Aristotle would have made the mistake which the text contains. 
But at any rate, it is a mistake ; if not of the transcriber, of Aristotle ; 
and it is impossible to reason about the passage, without correcting 
the mistake. The substitution of eXe^as for dudptoiro^ makes the 
reasoning coherent; but of course, any other acholous long-lived 
animal would do so equally well. 

The other emendation which I have made is in § 6. In the re- 
ceived text § 6 and 7 stand thus : 

6. Then every C is A, for every acholous animal is long-lived 
(rto St] r oXco virdp^eL to A, irdv yap to d.)(o\ov ixaKp6j3LOu)» 

7. Also every C is B, for all C is destitute of bile. 

Whence it may be inferred, says Aristotle, under certain condi- 
tions, that every B is A (to A tw B virdpyeLv) that is, that every 
acholous animal is long-lived. But this conclusion is, according to 
^ il llld|iR^j'^ ' ^^® common reading, identical with the major premiss ; so that the 

passage is manifestly corrupt. I correct it by substituting for 
dxoXov, r ; and thus reading irav yap to T fxaKpo^iov " for every 
C is long-lived:" just as in the parallel sentence, 7, we have dXXd 
Kai TO B, TO fJLj] exov ^oXjjv, iravTi v'Trdp^et, t'S T. In this way 
the reasoning becomes quite clear. The corrupt substitution of 
dxoXou for r may have been made in various ways ; which I need 
not suggest. As my business is with the sense of the passage, and 
as it makes no sense without the change, and very good sense with 
it, I cannot hesitate to make the emendation. And these emenda- 
tions being made, Aristotle's view of the nature and force of In- 
duction becomes, I think, perfectly clear and very instructive. 



I 



CRITICISM OF ARISTOTLE S INDUCTION. 459 



ADDITIONAL NOTE. 

I take the liberty of addina^ to this Memoir the following remarks, 
for which I am indebted to Mr Edleston, Fellow of Trinity College. 

Several of the earlier editions of Aristotle have 7 instead of 
axo^ov in the passage referred to in the above paper: ex. gr. 

(1) The edition printed at Basle, 1539 (after Erasmus) : " to y." 

(2) Basil (Erasmus) 1550. "to 7." 

(3) Burana's Latin version, Venet, 1552, has ** omne enim C 
longaevum." 

(4) Sylburg, Erancf. 1587 "to y" is printed in brackets thus : 
"[to 7] TO axoXov." 

(5) So also in Casaubon's edition, 1590. 

(6) Casaub. 1605 " to 7," (though the Latin version has " vacans 
bile;") not " [to 7] to a'xoXoz/," as the edition of 1590. 

(7) In the edition printed Aurel. Allobr. 1607, " [to 7] to 
dxoXov," as in (4) and (5). 

(8) Du Val's editions, Paris, 1619, 1629, 1654 " to 7," though in 
Pacius's translation in the adjacent column we find '' vacans bile." 

(9) In the critical notes to "Waltz's edition of the Organon (LipF. 
1844) it is stated that "post axoXov del. 7. n," implying apparently, 
that in the MS, marked w, the letter 7, which had been originally 
written after axoXov, had been erased. 

The following passages throw light upon the question whether 
dvdpooTTo^ ought or ought not to be retained in the passage dis- 
cussed in the Memoir. 

(A) Aristot. De Animnlibus Histor. 11. 15, 9 (Bekk.), twv fxev 
X^taoTOKvov Kol TeTpairoScou eXacpo^ ovk e)(ei TX''^"^] ouoe 'rrpo^y 

CTt Be Vttttos, opeus, oi^oe, (pMKrj Kal twv vcov evioi ."Ex^i ^e 

Kal 6 eXetpa^ to rjirap dxoXov fxev, k.t.X, 

(B) Conf. lb. 1. 17, 10, 11. (In the beginning of Chap. 16, he 
says that the external fxopia of man are yvwpijxa, *'Ta 5' ei/Tos 
Toi/vavTiov. "Ayvcaa-Ta yap ecrTt /xdXiarTa Tct twv dvQpwTrwv, 
uiarTe 8e2 Trpos Ta twv d\X(x)v fiopia ^tJwv dvdyovTU^ cKOTreTi/,"...) 

(C) Id De Part. Animal, iv. 2, 2. Ta fxev yap oXw? ovk e'xet 
XoX'jV, oToy i'TTTTOS Kal opev^ Kal 6vo<3 Kal eXacpoi Kal Trpo^ 



460 



APPENDIX D. 



Ey Sk Tot9 yiveffi toIs auToIs Ta ixev ex^'" (paiveTai, to, S* ovk 

^X^'-^i oToV kv TtS TcijV fJLVtZv. ToUTCOV 6' icTTL Kal 6 dvdp(J07rO9' 

euiot fxhv yap (paivovTau eyovre^ X^^'i^ ^'^^ '^^^ ^TraTO<s, 'ivioi d' 
OVK exofTes. Aid Kal yiveTat dix<pLa-j3iJTr]a-i9 irepi bXov tov ye- 
i/ous* 01 yap ej/TuxovT€s oiroTepcoaovif expvcri rrrepl ttuvtcov vtto- 
Xafi^dvova-iv cos dirdvTUiv iy^ouToov 

(D) lb. § 11. Aid Kal ■yapiearTaTa \eyovcn TUiV dpyaiiav ol 
(jiacrKOVTe<s atriov elvai tov TrXeioj X^rjv \p6vov to fxr] e)(^6iv xo- 
Xrji/, ^Xexp^avTe? iiri tu fxcSuvxa Kal ras eXd<pov3' TavTa yap 
dxoXd Te Kal ^y ttoXvv -y^pSvov. "Eti Be koI tu fii] hiopafxiva 
utt' GKeivuiv OTL OVK e'xet X^^'i*^* ^^^^y BeXcph Kal KdfirjXo^y Kal 
TavTa Tvyxdvei fxaKpojSta ovTa. 'EvXoyov ydp, k.t.X. 

(E) The elephant and roan are mentioned together as long- 
lived animals (De Long, et Brev. Vitce, iv. 2, and De Generat. Ani- 
mal. IV. 10, 2.) 



The following is the import of these passages: 

(A) " Of viviparous quadrupeds, the deer, roe, horse, mule, ass, 
seal, and some of the swine have not the gall-bladder. ... 

The elephant also has the liver without gall-bladder, &c.'* 

(B) " The external parts of man are well known : the internal 
parts are far from being so. The parts of man are in a great mea- 
sure unknown ; so that we must judge concerning them by refer- 
ence to the analogy of other animals. ...'* 

( C) " Some animals are altogether destitute of gall-bladder, as 
the horse, the mule, the ass, the deer, the roe.. .But in some kinds 
it appears that some have it, and some have it not, as the mice kind. 
And among these is man; for some men appear to have a gall- 
bladder on the liver, and some not to have one. And thus there is 
a doubt as to the species in general ; for those who have happened 
to examine examples of either kind, hold that all the cases are of 
that kind." 

(D) " Those of the ancients speak most plausibly, who say that 
the absence of the gall-bladder is the cause of long life ; looking 
at animals with uncloven hoof, and deer : for these are destitute of 
gall-bladder, and live a long time. And further, those animals in 
which the ancients had not the opportunity of ascertaining that 
they have not the gall-bladder, as the dolphin, and the camel, are 
also long-lived animals." 



CRITICISM OF Aristotle's induction. 461 

It appears, from these passages, that Aristotle was aware that 
some persons had asserted man to have a gall-bladder, but that he 
also conceived this not to be universally true. He may have in- 
clined to the opinion, that the opposite case was the more usual, 
and may have written dvdpwTro^, in the passage which I have been 
discussing. Another mistake of his is the reckoning deer among 
long-lived animals. 

It appears probable, from the context of the passages (C) and 
(D), that the conjecture of a connexion between absence of the 
gall-bladder and length of life was suggested by some such notion 
as this : — that the gall, from its bitterness, is the cause of irritation, 
mental and bodily, and that irritation is adverse to longevity. The 
opinion is ascribed to "the ancients," not claimed by Aristotle as 
his own. 



Appendix E. 

ON THE FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OE 
PHILOSOPHY. 

{Cam. Phil Soc. Feb. 5, 1844.) 





1. A LL persons who have attended in any degree to the views 
■^^ generally current of the nature of reasoning are familiar 
with the distinction of necessary truths and truths of experience; 
and few such persons, or at least few students of mathematics, 
require to have this distinction explained or enforced. All geome- 
tricians are satisfied that the geometrical truths with which they 
are conversant are necessarily true: they not only are true, but 
they must be true. The meaning of the terms being understood, 
and the proof being gone through, the truth of the proposition 
must be assented to. That parallelograms upon the same base and 
between the same parallels are equal; — that angles in the same 
segment are equal ; — these are propositions which we learn to be 
true by demonstrations deduced from definitions and axioms; and 
which, when w^e have thus learnt them, we see could not be other- 
wise. On the other hand, there are other truths which we learn 
from experience; as for instance, that the stars revolve round the 
pole in one day; and that the moon goes through her phases from 
full to full again in thirty days. These truths we see to be true ; 
but we know them only by experience. Men never could have 
discovered them without looking at the stars and the moon; and 
having so learnt them, still no one will pretend to say that they are 
necessarily true. For aught we can see, things might have been 
otherwise ; and if we had been placed in another part of the solar 
system, then, according to the opinions of astronomers, experience 
would have presented them otherwise. 

2. I take the astronomical truths of experience to contrast with 
the geometrical necessary truths, as being both of a familiar defi- 
nite sort ; we may easily find other examples of both kinds of truth. 
The truths which regard numbers are necessary truths. It is a 
necessary truth, that 27 and 38 are equal to 05; that half the sum 



FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 463 

of two numbers added to half their difference is equal to the 
greater number. On the other hand, that sugar will dissolve in 
water; that plants cannot live without light; and in short, the 
whole body of our knowledge in chemistry, physiology, and the 
other inductive sciences, consists of truths of experience. If there 
be any science which offer to us truths of an ambiguous kind, with 
regard to which we may for a moment doubt whether they are 
necessary or experiential, we will defer the consideration of them 
till we have marked the distinction of the two kinds more clearly. 

3. One mode in which we may express the difference of necessary 
truths and truths of experience, is, that necessary truths are those 
of which ice cannot distinctly conceive the contrary. "We can very 
readily conceive the contrary of experiential truths. "We can 
conceive the stars moving about the pole or across the sky in any 
kind of curves with any velocities; we can conceive the moou 
always appearing during the whole month as a luminous disk, as 
she might do if her light were inherent and not borrowed. But 
we cannot conceive one of the parallelograms on the same base 
and between the same parallels larger than the other ; for we 
find that, if we attempt to do this, when we separate the paral- 
lelograms into parts, we have to conceive one triangle larger than 
another, both having all their parts equal ; which we cannot 
conceive at all, if we conceive the triangles distinctly. We make 
this impossibility more clear by conceiving the triangles to be 
placed so that two sides of the one coincide with two sides of 
the other ; and it is then seen, that in order to conceive the tri- 
angles unequal, we must conceive the two bases which have the 
same extremities both ways, to be different lines, though both 
straight lines. This it is impossible to conceive : we assent to the 
impossibility as an axiom, when it is expressed by saying, that two 
straight lines cannot inclose a space ; and thus we cannot distinctly 
conceive the contrary of the proposition just mentioned respecting 
parallelograms. 

4. But it is necessary, in applying this distinction, to bear in 
mind the terms of it ; — that we cannot distinctly conceive the con- 
trary of a necessary truth. For in a certain loose, indistinct way, 
persons conceive the contrary of necessary geometrical truths, when 
they en'oneously conceive false propositions to be true. Thus, 
Hobbes erroneously held that he had discovered a means of geo- 
metrically doubling the cube, as it is called, that is, finding two 
mean proportionals between two given lines ; a problem which can- 
not be solved by plane geometry. Hobbes not only proposed a 
construction for this purpose, but obstinately maintained that it 



464 



APPENDIX E. 



I! 'J 



was right, -when it had been proyed to be wrong. But then, the 
discussion showed how indistinct the geometrical conceptions of 
Hobbes were ; for when his critics had proved that one of the lines 
in his diagram would not meet the other in the point which his 
reasoning supposed, but in another point near to it ; he maintained, 
in reply, that one of these points was large enough to include 
the other, so that they might be considered as the same point. 
Such a mode of conceiving the opposite of a geometrical truth, 
forms no exception to the assertion, that this opposite cannot be 
distinctly conceived. 

5. In like manner, the indistinct conceptions of children and of 
rude savages do not invalidate the distinction of necessary and ex- 
periential truths. Children and savages make mistakes even with 
regard to numbers; and might easily happen to assert that 27 
and 38 are equal to 63 or 64. But such mistakes cannot make 
such arithmetical truths cease to be necessary truths. "When any 
person conceives these numbers and their addition distinctly, by re- 
solving them into parts, or in any other way, he sees that their sum 
is necessarily 65. If, on the ground of the possibility of children 
and savages conceiving something different, it be held that this is 
not a necessary truth, it must be held on the same ground, that 
it is not a necessary truth that 7 and 4 are equal to 11 ; for children 
and savages might be found so unfamiliar with numbers as not to 
reject the assertion that 7 and 4 are 10, or even that 4 and 3 are 6, 
or 8. But I suppose that no persons would on such grounds hold 
that these arithmetical truths are truths known only by expe- 
rience. 

6. Necessary truths are established, as has already been said, 
by demonstration, proceeding from definitions and axioms, accord- 
ing to exact and rigorous inferences of reason. Truths of experi- 
ence are collected from what we see, also according to inferences 
of reason, but proceeding in a less exact and rigorous mode of 
proof. The former depend upon the relations of the ideas which 
we have in our minds : the latter depend upon the appearances or 
phenomena, which present themselves to our senses. Necessary 
truths are formed from our thoughts, the elements of the world 
within us ; experiential truths are collected from things, the ele- 
ments of the world without us. The truths of experience, as they 
appear to us in the external world, we call Facts ; and when we 
are able to find among our ideas a train which will conform tbem. 
selves to the apparent facts, we call this a Theory. 

7. This distinction and opposition, thus expressed in various 
forms; as Necessary and Experiential Truth, Ideas and Senses, 



-A 



FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 465 

Thoughts and Things, Theory and Fact, may be termed the 
Fundamental Antithesis of Philosophy ; for almost all the discus- 
sions of philosophers have been employed in asserting or denying, 
explaining or obscuring this antithesis. It may be expressed in 
many other ways; but is not difficult, under all these different 
forms, to recognize the same opposition : and the same remarks 
apply to it under its various forms, vfMh corresponding modifica- 
tions. Thus, as we have already seen, the antithesis agrees with 
that of Reasoning and Observation : again, it is identical with the 
opposition of Reflection and Sensation : again, sensation deals 
with Objects ; facts involve Objects, and generally all things with- 
out us are Objects: — Objects of sensation, of observation. On the 
other hand, we ourselves who thus observe objects, and in whom 
sensation is, may be called the Subjects of sensation and observa- 
tion. And this distinction of Subject and Object is one of the most 
general ways of expressing the fundamental antithesis, although 
not 3'et perhaps quite familiar in English. I shall not scruple 
however to speak of the Subjective and Objective element of this 
antithesis, where the expressions are convenient. 

8. All these forms of antithesis, and the familiar references to 
them which men make in all discussions, show the fundamental 
and necessary character of the antithesis. We can have no know- 
ledge without the union, no philosophy without the separation, of 
the two elements. "We can have no knowledge, except we have 
both impressions on our senses from the world without, and 
thoughts from our minds within : — except we attend to things, and 
to our ideas; — except we are passive to receive impressions, and 
active to compare, combine, and mould them. But on the other 
hand, philosophy seeks to distinguish the impressions of our senses 
from the thoughts of our minds ; — to point out the difference of 
ideas and things ; — to separate the active from the passive faculties 
of our being. The two elements, sensations and ideas, are both 
requisite to the existence of our knowledge, as both matter and 
form are requisite to the existence of a body. But philosophy 
considers the matter and the form separately. The properties of 
the form are the subject of geometry, the properties of the matter 
are the subject of chemistry or mechanics. 

9. But though philosophy considers these elements of know- 
ledge separately, they cannot really be separated, any more than 
can matter and form. We cannot exhibit matter without form, or 
form without matter; and just as little can we exhibit sensations 
without ideas, or ideas without sensations; — the passive or the 
active faculties of the mind detached from each other. 

HH 



466 



APPENDIX E. 




L 



In every act of my knowledge, there must be concerned the 
things whereof I know, and thoughts of me who know: I must 
both passively receive or have received impressions, and I must 
actively combine them and reason on them. No apprehension of 
things is purely ideal : no experience of external things is purely 
sensational. If they be conceived as things, the mind must have 
been awakened to the conviction of things by sensation : if they be 
conceived as things, the expressions of the senses must have been 
bound together by conceptions. If we think of any thing, we must 
recognize the existence both of thoughts and of things. The 
fundamental antithesis of philosophy is an antithesis of inseparable 
elements. 

10. Not only cannot these elements be separately exhibited, but 
they cannot be separately conceived and described. The descrip- 
tion of them must always imply their relation; and the names by 
which they are denoted will consequently always bear a relative 
significance. And thus the terms which denote the fundamental an- 
tithesis of philosophy cannot he applied absolutely and exclusively 
in any case. We may illustrate this by a consideration of some of 
the common modes of expressing the antithesis of which we speak. 
The terms Theory and Fact are often emphatically used as opposed 
to each other: and they are rightly so used. But yet it is im- 
possible to say absolutely in any case, This is a Fact and not a 
Theory; this is a Theory and not a Fact, meaning by Theory, true 
Theory. Is it a fact or a theory that the stars appear to revolve' 
round the pole ? Is it a fact or a theory that the earth is a globe 
revolving round its axis ? Is it a fact or a theory that the earth 
revolves round the sun? Is it a fact or a theory that the sun 
attracts the earth? Is it a fact or a theory that a loadstone attracts 
a needle ? In all these cases, some persons would answer one way 
and some persons another. A person who has never watched the 
stars, and has only seen them from time to time, considers their 
circular motion round the pole as a theory, just as he considers the 
motion of the sun in the ecliptic as a theory, or the apparent 
motion of the inferior planets round the sun in the zodiac. A 
person who has compared the measures of diflferent parts of the 
earth, and who knows that these measures cannot be conceived dis- 
tinctly without supposing the earth a globe, considers its globular 
form a fact, just as much as the square form of his chamber. A 
person to whom the grounds of believing the earth to revolve round 
its axis and round the sun, are as familiar as the grounds for be- 
lieving the movements of the mail-coaches in this country, con- 
ceives the former events to be facts, just as steadily as the latter. 



FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 467 

And a person who, believing the fact of the earth's annual motion, 
refers it distinctly to its mechanical course, conceives the sun's 
attraction as a fact, just as he conceives as a fact the action of the 
wind which turns the sails of a mill. We see then, that in these 
cases we cannot apply absolutely and exclusively either of the terms. 
Fact or Theory. Theory and Fact are the elements which cor- 
respond to our Ideas and our Senses. The Facts are facts so far as 
the Ideas have been combined with the sensations and absorbed 
in them: the Theories are Theories so far as the Ideas are kept 
distinct from the sensations, and so far as it is considered as still 
a question whether they can be made to agree with them. A true 
Theory is a fact, a Fact is a familiar theory. 

In like manner, if we take the terms Reasoning and Observa- 
tion ; at first sight they appear to be very distinct. Our observa- 
tion of the world without us, our reasonings in our own minds, 
appear to be clearly separated and opposed. But yet we shall find 
that we cannot apply these terms absolutely and exclusively. I see 
a book lying a few feet from me: is this a matter of observation? 
At first, perhaps, we might be inclined to say that it clearly is so. 
But yet, all of us, who have paid any attention to the process of 
vision, and to the mode in which we are enabled to judge of the 
distance of objects, and to judge them to be distant objects at all, 
know that this judgment involves inferences drawn from various 
sensations;— from the impressions on our two eyes; — from our 
muscular sensations; and the like. These inferences are of the 
nature of reasoning, as much as when we judge of the distance 
of an object on the other side of a river by looking at it from differ- 
ent points, and stepping the distance between them. Or again : we 
observe the setting sun illuminate a gilded weathercock ; but this is 
as much a matter of reasoning as when we observe the phases 
of the moon, and infer that she is illuminated by the sun. All ob- 
servation involves inferences, and inference is reasoning. 

11. Even the simplest terms by which the antithesis is expressed 
cannot be applied : ideas and sensations, thoughts and things, sub- 
ject and object, cannot in any case be applied absolutely and ex- 
clusively. Our sensations require ideas to bind them together, 
namely, ideas of space, time, number, and the like. If not so 
bound together, sensations do not give us any apprehension of 
things or objects. All things, all objects, must exist in space and 
in time — must be one or many. Now space, time, number, are not 
sensations or things. They are something different from, and op- 
posed to sensations and things. We have termed them ideas. It 
may be said they are relations of things, or of sensations. But 

H h2 



L 



468 APPENDIX E. 

granting this form of expression, still a relation is not a thing 
or a sensation ; and therefore we must still have another and 
opposite element, along with our sensations. And yet, though 
we have thus these two elements in every act of perception, we 
cannot designate any portion of the act as absolutely and exclu- 
sively belonging to one of the elements. Perception involves sen- 
sation, along with ideas of time, space, and the like; or, if any 
one prefers the expression, involves sensations along with the ap- 
prehension of relations. Perception is sensation, along with such 
ideas as make sensation into an apprehension of things or objects. 

12. And as perception of objects implies ideas, as observation 
implies reasoning ; so, on the other hand, ideas cannot exist where 
sensation has not been : reasoning cannot go on when there has not 
been previous observation. This is evident from the necessary 
order of development of the human faculties. Sensation necessa- 
rily exists from the first moments of our existence, and is constantly 
at work. Observation begins before we can suppose the exist- 
ence of any reasoning which is not involved in observation. Hence, 
at whatever period we consider our ideas, we must consider them 
as having been already engaged in connecting our sensations, and 
as modified by this employment. By being so employed, our ideas 
are unfolded and defined, and such development and definition 
cannot be separated from the ideas themselves. We cannot con- 
ceive space without boundaries or forms ; now forms involve sen- 
sations. We cannot conceive time without events which mark 
the course of time ; but events involve sensations. We cannot 
conceive number without conceiving things which are numbered; 
and things imply sensations. And the forms, things, events, which 
are thus implied in our ideas, having been the objects of sensa- 
tion constantly in every part of our life, have modified, unfolded 
and fixed our ideas, to an extent which we cannot estimate, but 
which we must suppose to be essential to the processes which at 
present go on in our minds. We cannot say that objects create 
ideas; for to perceive objects we must already have ideas. But we 
may say, that objects and the constant perception of objects have so 
far modified our ideas, that we cannot, even in thought, separate 
our ideas from the perception of objects. 

We cannot say of any ideas, as of the idea of space, or time, or 
number, that they are absolutely and exclusively ideas. We cannot 
conceive what space, or time, or number would be in our minds, 
if we had never perceived any thing or things in space or time. 
We cannot conceive ourselves in such a condition as never to have 
perceived any thing or things in space or time. But, on the other 



FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 469 

hand, just as little can we conceive ourselves becoming acquainted 
with space and time or numbers as objects of sensation. We can- 
not reason without having the operations of our minds affected by 
previous sensations ; but we cannot conceive reasoning to be merely 
a series of sensations. In order to be used in reasoning, sensa- 
tion must become observation ; and, as we have seen, observation 
already involves reasoning. In order to be connected by our ideas, 
sensations must be things or objects, and things or objects already 
include ideas. And thus, as we have said, none of the terms by 
which the fundamental antithesis is expressed can be absolutely 
and exclusively applied. 

13. I now proceed to make one or two remarks suggested by 
the views which have thus been presented. And first I remark, 
that since, as we have just seen, none of the terms which express 
the fundamental antithesis can be applied absolutely and exclu- 
sively, the absolute application of the antithesis in any particular 
case can never be a conclusive or immoveable principle. This 
remark is the more necessary to be borne in mind, as the terms of 
this antithesis are often used in a vehement and peremptory man- 
ner. Thus we are often told that such a thing is a Fact and not a 
Theory, with all the emphasis which, in speaking or writing, tone 
or italics or capitals can give. We see from what has been said, 
that when this is urged, before we can estimate the truth, or the 
value of the assertion, we must ask to whom is it a fact? what 
habits of thought, what previous information, what ideas does it 
imply, to conceive the fact as a fact ? Does not the apprehension 
of the fact imply assumptions which may with equal justice be 
called theory, and which are perhaps false theory ? in which case, 
the fact is no fact. Did not the ancients assert it as a fact, that the 
earth stood still, and the stars moved? and can any fact have 
stronger apparent evidence to justify persons in asserting it empha- 
tically than this had? These remarks are by no means urged in 
order to show that no fact can be certainly known to be true ; but 
only to show that no fact can be certainly shown to be a fact 
merely by calling it a fact, however emphatically. There is by no 
means any ground of general skepticism with regard to truth 
involved in the doctrine of the necessary combination of two ele- 
ments in all our knowledge. On the contrary, ideas are requisite 
to the essence, and things to the reality of our knowledge in every 
case. The proportions of geometry and arithmetic are examples of 
knowledge respecting our ideas of space and number, with regard 
to which there is no room for doubt. The doctrines of astronomy 
are examples of truths not less certain respecting the external world. 



470 



APPENDIX E. 



14. I remark further, that since in every act of knowledge, 
observation or perception, both the elements of the fundamental 
antithesis are involved, and involved in a manner inseparable even 
in our conceptions, it must always be possible to derive one of these 
elements from the other, if we are satisfied to accept, as proof of 
such derivation, that one always co-exists with and implies the 
other. Thus an opponent may say, that our ideas of space, time, 
and number, are derived from our sensations or perceptions, because 
we never were in a condition in which we had the ideas of space 
and time, and had not sensations or perceptions. But then, we 
may reply to this, that we no sooner perceive objects than we per- 
ceive them as existing in space and time, and therefore the ideas of 
space and time are not derived from the perceptions. In the same 
manner, an opponent may say, that all knowledge which is involved 
in our reasonings is the result of experience; for instance, our 
knowledge of geometry. For every geometrical principle is pre- 
sented to us by experience as true; beginning with the simplest, 
from which all others are derived by processes of exact reasoning. 
But to this we reply, that experience cannot be the origin of such 
knowledge; for though experience shows that such principles are 
true, it cannot show that they must he true, which we also know. 
"We never have seen, as a matter of observation, two straight lines 
inclosing a space; but we venture to say further, without the 
smallest hesitation, that we never shall see it ; and if any one were 
to tell us that, according to his experience, such a form was often 
seen, we should only suppose that he did not know what he was 
talking of. No number of acts of experience can add to the cer- 
tainty of our knowledge in this respect; which shows that our 
knowledge is not made up of acts of experience. We cannot test 
such knowledge by experience; for if we were to try to do so, we 
must first know that the lines with which we make the trial are 
straight ; and we have no test of straightness better than this, that 
two such lines cannot inclose a space. Since then, experience can 
neither destroy, add to, nor test our axiomatic knowledge, such 
knowledge cannot be derived from experience. Since no one act of 
experience can affect our knowledge, no numbers of acts of expe- 
rience can make it. 

15. To this a reply has been oflPered, that it is a characteristic 
property of geometric forms that the ideas of them exactly resemble 
the sensations; so that these ideas are as fit subjects of experi- 
mentation as the realities themselves; and that by such experi- 
mentation we learn the truth of the axioms of geometry. I might 
very reasonably ask those who use this language to explain how a 



FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 47 1 

particular class of ideas can be said to resemble sensations; how, if 
they do, we can know it to be so; how we can prove this resem- 
blance to belong to geometrical ideas and sensations ; and how it 
comes to be an especial characteristic of those. But I will put the 
argument in another way. Experiment can only show what is, 
not what must be. If experimentation on ideas shows what must 
be, it is different from what is commonly called experience. 

I may add, that not only the mere use of our senses cannot show 
that the axioms of geometry must he true, but that, without the 
light of our ideas, it cannot even show that they are true. If we 
had a segment of a circle a mile long and an inch wide, we should 
have two lines inclosing a space; but we could not, by seeing or 
touching any part of either of them, discover that it was a bent line. 

16. That mathematical truths are not derived from experience 
is perhaps still more evident, if greater evidence be possible, in the 
case of numbers. "We assert that 7 and 8 are 15. "We find it so, if 
we try with counters, or in any other way. But we do not, on that 
account, say that the knowledge is derived from experience. "We 
refer to our conceptions of seven, of eight, and of addition, and as 
soon as we possess these conceptions distinctly, we see that the 
sum must be fifteen. "We cannot be said to make a trial, for we 
should not believe the apparent result of the trial if it were different. 
If any one were to say that the multiplication table is a table of 
the results of experience, we should know that he could not be 
able to go along with us in our researches into the foundations of 
human knowledge; nor, indeed, to pursue with success any specu- 
lations oh the subject. 

17. Attempts have also been made to explain the origin of 
axiomatic truths by referring them to the association of ideas. But 
this is one of the cases in which the word association has been 
applied so widely and loosely, that no sense can be attached to it. 
Those who have written with any degree of distinctness on the 
subject, have truly taught, that the habitual association of the ideas 
leads us to believe a connexion of the things : but they have never 
told us that this association gave us the power of forming the ideas. 
Association may determine belief, but it cannot determine the pos- 
sibility of our conceptions. The African king did not believe that 
water could become solid, because he had never seen it in that 
state. But that accident did not make it impossible to conceive it 
so, any more than it is impossible for us to conceive frozen quick- 
silver, or melted diamond, or liquefied air; which we may never 
have seen, but have no difficulty in conceiving. If there were a 
tropical philosopher really incapable of conceiving water solidified. 



472 



APPENDIX E. 



¥ I 



he must have been brought into that mental condition by abstruse 
speculations on the necessary relations of solidity and fluidity, not 
by the association of ideas. 

18. To return to the results of the nature of the Fundamental 
Antithesis. As by assuming uniyersal and indissoluble connexion 
of ideas with perceptions, of knowledge with experience, as an 
evidence of derivation, we may assert the former to be derived from 
the latter, so might we, on the same ground, assert the latter to be 
derived from the former. We see all forms in space; and we 
might hence assert all forms to be mere modifications of our idea 
of space. "We see all events happen in time ; and we might hence 
assert all events to be merely limitations and boundary-marks of 
our idea of time. We conceive all collections of things as two or 
three, or some other number: it might hence be asserted that we 
have an original idea of number, which is reflected in external 
things. In this case, as in the other, we are met at once by the 
impossibility of this being a complete account of our knowledge. 
Our ideas of space, of time, of number, however distinctly reflected 
to us with limitations and modifications, must be reflected, limited 
and modified by something different from themselves. We must 
have visible or tangible forms to limit space, perceived events to 
mark time, distinguishable objects to exemplify number. But still, 
in forms, and events, and objects, we have a knowledge which they 
themselves cannot give us. For we know, without attending to 
them, that whatever they are, they will conform and must conform 
to the truths of geometry and arithmetic. There is an ideal por- 
tion in all our knowledge of the external world ; and if we were 
resolved to reduce all our knowledge to one of its two antithetical 
elements, we might say that all our knowledge consists in the rela- 
tion of our ideas. Wherever there is necessary truth, there must 
be something more than sensation can supply : and the necessary 
truths of geometry and arithmetic show us that our knowledge of 
objects in space and time depends upon necessary relations of ideas, 
whatever other element it may involve. 

19. This remark may be carried much further than the domain 
of geometry and arithmetic. Our knowledge of matter may at first 
sight appear to be altogether derived from the senses. Yet we 
cannot derive from the senses our knowledge of a truth which we 
accept as universally certain ; — namely, that we cannot by any pro- 
cess add to or diminish the quantity of matter in the world. This 
truth neither is nor can be derived from experience ; for the experi- 
ments which we make to verify it pre-suppose its truth. When 
the philosopher was asked what was the weight of smoke, he bade 



FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 473 

the inquirer subtract the weight of the ashes from the weight of 
the fuel. Every one who thinks clearly of the changes which take 
place in matter, assents to the justice of this reply : and this, not 
because any one had found by trial that such was the weight of the 
smoke produced in combustion, but because the weight lost was 
assumed to have gone into some other form of matter, not to have 
been destroyed. When men began to use the balance in chemical 
analysis, they did not prove by trial, but took for granted, as self- 
evident, that the weight of the whole must be found in the aggre- 
gate weight of the elements. Thus it is involved in the idea of 
matter that its amount continues unchanged in all changes which 
take place in its consistence. This is a necessary truth: and thus 
our knowledge of matter, as collected from chemical experiments, 
is also a modification of our idea of matter as the material of the 
world incapable of addition or diminution. 

20. A similar remark may be made with regard to the mecha- 
nical properties of matter. Our knowledge of these is reduced^ in 
our reasonings, to principles which we call the laws of motion. 
These laws of motion, as I have endeavoured to show', depend 
upon the idea of Cause, and involve necessary truths, which are 
necessarily implied in the idea of cause; — namely, that every 
change of motion must have a cause — that the effect is measured 
by the cause; — that re-action is equal and opposite to action. 
These principles are not derived from experience. No one, I sup- 
pose, would derive from experience the principle, that every event 
must have a cause. Every attempt to see the traces of cause in 
the world assumes this principle. I do not say that these prin- 
ciples are anterior to experience ; for I have already, I hope, shown, 
that neither of the two elements of our knowledge is, or can be, 
anterior to the other. But the two elements are co-ordinate in the 
development of the human mind; and the ideal element may be 
said to be the origin of our knowledge with the more propriety 
of the two, inasmuch as our knowledge is the relation of ideas. 
The other element of knowledge, in which sensation is concerned, 
and which embodies, limits, and defines the necessary truths which 
express the relations of our ideas, may be properly termed ex- 
perience; and I have, in the discussion just quoted, endeavoured 
to show how the principles concerning mechanical causation, 
which 1 have just stated, are, by observation and experiment, 
limited and defined, so that they become the laws of motion. 



1 Eist. Sc. Ind. b. ill. 




i 



474 APPENDIX E. 

And thus we see that such knowledge is derived from ideas, in 
a sense quite as general and rigorous, to say the least, as that 
in which it is derived from experience. 

21. I will take another example of this ; although it is one less 
familiar, and the consideration of it perhaps a little more difficult 
and obscure. The objects which we find in the world, for in- 
stance, minerals and plants, are of different kinds; and accord- 
ing to their kinds, they are called by various names, by means of 
which we know what we mean when we speak of them. The 
discrimination of these kinds of objects, according to their differ- 
ent forms and other properties, is the business of chemistry and 
botany. And this business of discrimination, and of consequent 
classification, has been carried on from the first periods of the 
development of the human mind, by an industrious and compre- 
hensive series of observations and experiments ; the only way in 
which any portion of the task could have been effected. But as the 
foundation of all this labour, and as a necessary assumption during 
every part of its progress, there has been in men's minds the 
principle, that objects are so distinguishable by resemblances and 
differences, that they may be named, and known by their names. 
This principle is involved in the idea of a Name; and without 
it no progress could have been made. The principle may be 
briefly stated thus : — Intelligible Names of kinds are possible. If 
we suppose this not to be so, language can no longer exist, nor 
could the business of human life go on. If instead of having 
certain definite kinds of minerals, gold, iron, copper and the like, 
of which the external forms and characters are constantly con- 
nected with the same properties and qualities, there were no con- 
nexion between the appearance and the properties of the object; — 
if what seemed externally iron might turn out to resemble lead in 
its hardness; and what seemed to be gold during many trials, 
might at the next trial be found to be like copper; not only all the 
uses of these minerals would fail, but they would not be distin- 
guishable kinds of things, and the names would be unmeaning. 
And if this entire uncertainty as to kind and properties prevailed 
for all objects, the world would no longer be a world to which lan- 
guage was applicable. To man, thus unable to distinguish objects 
into kinds, and call them by names, all knowledge would be im- 
possible, and all definite apprehension of external objects would 
fade away into an inconceivable confusion. In the very apprehen- 
sion of objects as intelligibly sorted, there is involved a principle 
which springs within us, contemporaneous, in its efficacy, with our 
first intelligent perception of the kinds of things of which the world 



FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 475 

consists. "We assume, as a necessary basis of our knowledge, that 
things are of definite kinds; and the aim of chemistry, botany, and 
other sciences is, to find marks of these kinds ; and along with 
these, to learn their definitely-distinguished properties. Even here, 
therefore, where so large a portion of our knowledge comes from 
experience and observation, we cannot proceed without a neces- 
sary truth derived from our ideas, as our fundamental principle 
of knowledge. 

22. "What the marks are, which distinguish the constant difi^er- 
ences of kinds of things (definite marks, selected from among many 
unessential appearances), and what their definite properties are, 
when they are so distinguished, are parts of our knowledge to 
be learnt from observation, by various processes; for instance, 
among others, by chemical analysis. "We find the differences of 
bodies, as shown by such analysis, to be of this nature : — that there 
are various elementary bodies, which, combining in different definite 
proportions, form kinds of bodies definitely different. But, in arriv- 
ing at this conclusion, we introduce a new idea, that of Elementary 
Composition, which is not extracted from the phenomena, but sup- 
plied by the mind, and introduced in order to make the phenomena 
intelligible. That this notion of elementary composition is not sup- 
plied by the chemical phenomena of combustion, mixture, &c. as 
merely an observed fact, we see from this ; that men had in ancient 
times jjerformed many experiments in which elementary composition 
was concerned, and had not seen the fact. It never was truly seen 
till modern times; and when seen, it gave a new aspect to the whole 
body of known facts. This idea of elementary composition, then, is 
supplied by the mind, in order to make the facts of chemical analy- 
sis and synthesis intelligible as analysis and synthesis. And this 
idea being so supplied, there enters into our knowledge along with 
it a corresponding necessary principle; — That the elementary com- 
position of a body determines its kind and properties. This is, I 
say, a principle assumed, as a consequence of the idea of composi- 
tion, not a result of experience; for when bodies have been divided 
into their kinds, we take for granted that the analysis of a single 
specimen may serve to determine the analysis of all bodies of the 
same kind; and without this assumption, chemical knowledge with 
regard to the kinds of bodies would not be possible. It has been 
said that we take only one experiment to determine the composition 
of any particular kind of body, because we have a thousand experi- 
ments to determine that bodies of the same kind have the same 
composition. But this is not so. Our belief in the principle that 
bodies of the same kind have the same composition is not established 



47^ APPENDIX E. 

by experiments, but is assumed as a necessary consequence of the 
ideas of Kind and of Composition. If, in our experiments, we 
found that bodies supposed to be of the same kind had not the same 
composition, we should not at all doubt of the principle just stated, 
but conclude at once that the bodies were not of the same kind; — 
that the marks by which the kinds are distinguished had been 
wrongly stated. This is what has very frequently happened in the 
course of the investigations of chemists and mineralogists. And 
thus we have it, not as an experiential fact, but as a necessary 
principle of chemical philosophy, that the Elementary Composition 
of a body determines its Kind and Properties. 

23. How bodies differ in their elementary composition, experi- 
ment must teach us, as we have already said, that experiment has 
taught us. But as we have also said, whatever be the nature of 
this difference, kinds must be definite, in order that language may 
be possible : and hence, whatever be the terms in which we are 
taught by experiment to express the elementary composition of 
bodies, the result must be conformable to this principle. That the 
difference's of elementary composition are definite. The law to 
which we are led by experiment is, that the elements of bodies 
continue in definite proportions according to weight. Experiments 
add other laws; as for instance, that of multiple proportions in 
different kinds of bodies composed of the same elements ; but of 

V % these we do not here speak. 

24. We are thus led to see that in our knowledge of mechanics, 
chemistry, and the lilce, there are involved certain necessary princi- 

> 4 iiiiiyiMii*^ pies, derived from our ideas, and not from experience. But to this 

it may be objected, that the parts of our knowledge in which these 
principles are involved has, in historical fact, all been acquired by 
experience. The laws of motion, the doctrine of definite propor- 
tions, and the like, have all become known by experiment and 
I observation ; and so far from being seen as necessary truths, have 

been discovered by long-continued labours and trials, and through 
innumerable vicissitudes of confusion, error, and imperfect truth. 
This is perfectly true; but does not at all disprove what has been 
said. Perception of external objects and experience, experiment 
and observation are needed, not only, as we have said, to supply the 
objective element of all knowledge — to embody, limit, define, and, 

I modify our ideas ; but this intercourse with objects is also requisite 

to unfold and fix our ideas themselves. As we have already said, 

ideas and facts can never be separated. Our ideas cannot be exer- 

« cised and developed in any other form than in their combination 

U with facts, and therefore the trials, corrections, controversies, by. 

i 



\ 



ii. 



mkt 



FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 477 

which the matter of our knowledge is collected, is also the only way 
in which the form of it can be rightly fashioned. Experience is 
requisite to the clearness and distinctness of our ideas, not because 
they are derived from experience, but because they can only be 
exercised upon experience. And this consideration sufficiently ex- 
plains how it is that experiment and observation have been the 
means, and the only means, by which men have been led to a 
knowledge of the laws of nature. In reality, how^ever, the neces- 
sary principles v/hich flow from our ideas, and which are the basis 
of such knowledge, have not only been inevitably assumed in the 
course of such investigations, but have been often expressly pro- 
mulgated in words by clear-minded philosophers, long before their 
true interpretation was assigned by experiment. This has happened 
with regard to such principles as those above mentioned ; That every 
event must have a cause; That reaction is equal and opposite to 
action; That the quantity of matter in the world cannot be in- 
creased or diminished : and there would be no difficulty in finding 
similar enunciations of the other principles above mentioned; — 
That the kinds of things have definite differences, aud that these 
differences depend upon their elementary composition. In general, 
however, it may be allowed, that the necessary principles which 
are involved in those laws of nature of which we have a knowledge 
become then only clearly known, when the laws of nature are dis- 
covered which thus involve the necessary ideal element. 

25. But since this is allowed, it may be further asked, how we 
are to distinguish between the necessary principle which is derived 
from our ideas, and the law of nature which is learnt by experience. 
And to this we reply, that the necessary principle may be known by 
the condition which we have already mentioned as belonging to such 
principles:. ..that it is impossible distinctly to conceive the contrary. 
"We cannot conceive an event without a cause, except we abandon 
all distinct idea of cause; we cannot distinctly conceive two straight 
lines inclosing space; and if we seem to conceive this, it is only 
because we conceive indistinctly. We cannot conceive 5 and 3 
making 7 or 9 ; if a person were to say that he could conceive this, 
we should know that he was a person of immature or rude or be- 
wildered ideas, w-hose conceptions had no distinctness. And thus 
we may take it as the mark of a necessary truth, that we cannot 
conceive the contrary distinctly. 

2G. If it be asked what is the test of distinct conception (since 
it is upon the distinctness of conception that the matter depends), 
we may consider what answer we should give to this question if it 
were asked with regard to the truths of geometry. If we doubted 



47 S APPENDIX E. 

whether any one had these distinct conceptions which enable him to 
see the necessary nature of geometrical truth, we should inquire if 
he could understand the axioms as axioms, and could follow, as 
demonstrative, the reasonings which are founded upon them. If 
this were so, we should be ready to pronounce that he had distinct 
ideas of space, in the sense now supposed. And the same answer 
may be given in any other case. That reasoner has distinct concep- 
tions of mechanical causes who can see the axioms of mechanics as 
axioms, and can follow the demonstrations derived from them as 
demonstrations. If it be said that the science, as presented to him, 
maybe erroneously constructed; that the axioms may not be axioms, 
and therefore the demonstrations may be futile, we still reply, that 
the same might be said with regard to geometry: and yet that the 
possibility of this does not lead us to doubt either of the truth or of 
the necessary nature of the propositions contained in Euclid's Ele- 
ments. "We may add further, that although, no doubt, the authors 
of elementary books maybe persons of confused minds, who present 
as axioms what are not axiomatic truths; yet that in general, what 
is presented as an axiom by a thoughtful man, though it may include 
some false interpretation or application of our ideas, will also gene- 
rally include some principle which really is necessarily true, and 
which would still be involved in the axiom, if it were corrected 
so as to be true instead of false. And thus we still say, that if 
in any department of science a man can conceive distinctly at all, 
there are principles the contrary of which he cannot distinctly con- 
ceive, and which are therefore necessary truths. 

27. But on this it may be asked, whether truth can thus depend 
upon the particular state of mind of the person who contemplates 
it ; and whether that can be a necessary truth which is not so to all 
men. And to this we again reply, by referring to geometry and 
arithmetic. It is plain that truths may be necessary truths which 
are not so to all men, when we include men of confused and per- 
plexed intellects ; for to such men it is not a necessary truth that 
two straight lines cannot inclose a space, or that 14 and 17 are 31. 
It need not be wondered at, therefore, if to such men it does not 
appear a necessary truth that reaction is equal and opposite to 
action, or that the quantity of matter in the world cannot be 
increased or diminished. And this view of knowledge and truth 
does not make it depend upon the state of mind of the student, any 
more than geometrical knowledge and geometrical truth, by the 
confession of all, depend upon that state. "We know that a man 
cannot have any knowledge of geometry without so much of atten- 
tion to the matter of the science, and so much of care in the 



I *^ 



FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 479 

management of his own thoughts, as is requisite to keep his ideas 
distinct and clear. But we do not, on that account, think of main- 
taining that geometrical truth depends merely upon the state of 
the student's mind. We conceive that he knows it because it is 
true, not that it is true because he knows it. We are not surprised 
that attention and care and repeated thought should be requisite to 
the clear apprehension of truth. For such care and such repetition 
are requisite to the distinctness and clearness of our ideas : and yet 
the relations of these ideas, and their consequences, are not pro- 
duced by the efforts of attention or repetition which we exert. 
They are in themselves something which we may discover, but 
cannot make or change. The idea of space, for instance, which is 
the basis of geometry, cannot give rise to any doubtful propositions. 
What is inconsistent with the idea of space cannot be truly obtained 
from our ideas by any efforts of thought or curiosity; if we blunder 
into any conclusion inconsistent with the idea of space, our know- 
ledge, so far as this goes, is no knowledge : any more than our 
observation of the external world would be knowledge, if, from 
haste or inattention, or imperfection of sense, we were to mistake 
the object which we see before us. 

28. But further: not only has truth this reality, which makes it 
independent of our mistakes, that it must be what is really con- 
sistent with our ideas ; but also, a further reality, to which the 
term is more obviously applicable, arising from the principle already 
explained, that ideas and perceptions are inseparable. For since, 
when we contemplate our ideas, they have been frequently em- 
bodied and exemplified in objects, and thus have been fixed and 
modified ; and since this compound aspect is that under which we 
constantly have them before us, and free from which they cannot 
be exhibited; our attempts to make our ideas clear and distinct 
will constantly lead us to contemplate them as they are manifested 
in those external forms in which they are involved. Thus in study- 
ing geometrical truth, we shall be led to contemplate it as exhi- 
bited in visible and tangible figures; — not as if these could be 
sources of truth, but as enabling us more readily to compare the 
aspects which our ideas, applied to the world of objects, may 
assume. And thus we have an additional indication of the ref^'.ty 
of geometrical truth, in the necessary possibility of i$s being capable 
of being exhibited in a visible or tangible form. And yet even this 
test by no means supersedes the necessity of distinct ideas, in order 
to a knowledge of geometrical truth. For in the case of the dupli- 
cation of the cube by Hobbes, mentioned above, the diagram which 
he drew made two points appear to coincide, which did not really, 




I 



480 APPENDIX E. 

and by the nature of our idea of space, coincide ; and thus con- 
firmed him in his eri'or. 

Thus the inseparable nature of the Fundamental Antithesis of 
Ideas and Things gives reality to our knowledge, and makes objec- 
tive reality a corrective of our subjective imperfections in the pursuit 
of knowledge. But this objective exhibition of knowledge can by no 
means supersede a complete development of the subjective condition, 
namely^ distinctness of ideas. And that there is a subjective condi~ 
Hon, by no means makes knoivledge altogether subjective, and thus 
deprives it of reality ; because, as we have said, the subjective and 
the objective elements are inseparably bound together in the funda- 
mental antithesis. 

29. It would be easy to apply these remarks to other cases, for 
instance, to the case of the principle we have just mentioned, that 
the differences of elementary composition of different kinds of bodies 
must be definite. We have stated that this principle is necessarily 
true; — that the contrary proposition cannot be distinctly conceived. 
But by whom? Evidently, according to the preceding reasoning, by 
a person who distinctly conceives Kinds, as marked by intelligible 
names, and Composition, as determining the kinds of bodies. Per- 
sons new to chemical and classificatory science may not possess 
these ideas distinctly; or rather, cannot possess them distinctly; 
and therefore cannot apprehend the impossibility of conceiving the 
opposite of the above principle; just as the schoolboy cannot appre- 
hend the impossibility of the numbers in his multiplication table 
being other than they are. But this inaptitude to conceive, in 
either case, does not alter the necessary character of the truth: 
although, in one case, the truth is obvious to all except schoolboys 
and the like, and the other is probably not clear to any except those 
who have attentively studied the philosophy of elementary com- 
positions. At the same time, this difference of apprehension of the 
truth in different persons does not make the truth doubtful or 
dependent upon personal qualifications ; for in proportion as per- 
sons attain to distinct ideas, they will see the truth ; and cannot, 
with such ideas, see anything as truth which is not truth. AYhen 
the relations of elements in a compound become as familiar to a 
person as the relations of factors in a multiplication table, he will 
then see what are the necessary axioms of chemistry, as he now sees 
the necessary axioms of arithmetic. 

30. There is also one other remark which I will here make. In 
the progress of science, both the elements of our knowledge are 
constantly expanded and augmented. By the exercise of observa- 
tion and experiment, we have a perpetual accumulation of facts, tha 



FUNDAMENTAL ANTITHESIS OF PHILOSOPHY. 48 1 

materials of knowledge, the objective element. By thought and 
discussion, we have a perpetual development of man's ideas going 
on : theories are framed, the materials of knowledge are shaped into 
form; the subjective element is evolved; and by the necessary 
coincidence of the objective and subjective elements, the matter and 
the form, the theory and the facts, each of these processes furthers 
and corrects the other: each element moulds and unfolds the other. 
Now it follows, from this constant development of the ideal portion 
of our knowledge, that we shall constantly be brought in view of 
new Necessary Principles, the expression of the conditions belong- 
ing to the Ideas which enter into our expanding knowledge. These 
principles, at first dimly seen and hesitatingly asserted, at last be- 
come clearly and plainly self-evident. Such is the case with the 
principles which are the basis of the laws of motion. Such may 
soon be the case with the principles which are the basis of the 
philosophy of chemistry. Such may hereafter be the case with 
the principles which are to be the basis of the philosophy of the 
connected and related polarities of chemistry, electricity, galvanism, 
magnetism. That knowledge is possible in these cases, we know; 
that our knowledge may be reduced to principles, gradually more 
simple, we also know ; that we have reached the last stage of 
simplicity of our principles, few cultivators of the subject will be 
disposed to maintain; and that the additional steps which lead 
towards very simple and general principles will also lead to prin- 
ciples which recommend themselves by a kind of axiomatic charac- 
ter, those who judge from the analogy of the past history of science 
will hardly doubt. That the principles thus axiomatic in their 
form, do also express some relation of our ideas, of which experi- 
ment and observation have given a true and real interpretation, 
is the doctrine which I have here attempted to establish and illus- 
trate in the most clear and undoubted of the existing sciences ; and 
the evidence of this doctrine in those cases seems to be unexcep- 
tionable, and to leave no room to doubt that such is the universal 
type of the progress of science. Such a doctrine, as we have now 
seen, is closely connected with the views here presented of the 
nature of the Fundamental Antithesis of Philosophy, which I have 
endeavoured to illustrate. 



I I 




Appendix F. 

EEMAEKS ON A REVIEW OE THE PHILO- 
SOPHY OF THE INDTJCTIYE SCIENCES. 



Trinity Lodge, April \Wi, 1844. 

Mt Dear Herschel, 

T)EING about to send you a copy of a paper on a philosophical 
question just printed in the Transactions of our Canibrids^e 
Society, I am tempted to add, as a private communication, a few- 
Remarks on another aspect of the same question. These Remarks 
I think I may properly address to you. They will refer to an 
Article in the Quarterly Revieiv for June, 1841, respecting my 
History and Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences ; and without 
assigning any other reason, I may say that the interest I know you 
to take in speculations on such subjects makes me confident that 
you will give a reasonable attention to what I may have to say on 
the subject of that Article. With the Reviewal itself, I am so far 
from having any quarrel, that when it appeared I received it as 
affording all that I hoped from Public Criticism. The degree and 
the kind of admiration bestowed upon my works by a writer so 
familiar with science, so comprehensive in his views, and so equit- 
able in his decisions, as the Reviewer manifestly was, I accepted 
as giving my work a stamp of acknowledged value which few other 
hands could have bestowed. 

You may perhaps recollect, however, that the Reviewer dissented 
altogether from some of the general views which I had maintained, 
and especially from a general view which is also, in the main, 
that presented in the accompanying Memoir, namely, that, besides 
Pacts, Ideas are an indispensable source of our knowledge; that 
Ideas are the ground of necessary truth ; that the Idea of Space, in 
particular, is the ground of the necessary truths of geometry. This 
question, and especially as limited to the last form, will be the sub- 
ject of my Remarks in the first place ; and I wish to consider the 
Reviewer's objections with the respect which their subtlety and 
depth of thought well deserve. 



REMARKS ON A REVIEW, &C. 483 

The Reviewer iriakes objections to the account which I have 
given of the source whence geometrical truth derives its characters 
of being necessary and universal; but he is not one of those meta- 
physicians who deny those characters to the truths of geometry. 
He allows in the most ample manner that the truths of geometry 
are necessary. The question between us therefore is from what 
this character is derived. The Reviewer prefers, indeed, to have it 
considered that the question is not concerning the necessity, but, as 
he says, the universality of these truths; or rather, the nature and 
grounds of our conviction of their universality. He might have 
said, with equal justice, the nature and grounds of our conviction 
of their necessity. For his objection to the term necessity in this 
case — " that all the propositions about realities are necessarily true, 
since every reality must be consistent with itself," (p. 206) — does not 
apply to our conviction of neceoJty, since we may not be able to 
see what are the properties of real things ; and therefore may have 
no conviction of their necessity. It may be a necessary property of 
salt to be soluble, but we see no such necessity ; and therefore the 
assertion of such a property is not one of the necessary truths with 
which we are here concerned. But to turn back to the necessary 
or universal truths of geometry, and the ground of those attributes : 
The main difference between the Author and the Reviewer is 
brought into view, when the Reviewer discusses the general argu- 
ment which I had used, in order to show that truths which we see 
to be necessary and universal cannot be derived from experience. 
The argument is this, — 

" Experience must always consist of a limited number of observa- 
tions ; and however numerous these may be, they can show nothing 
with regard to the infinite number of cases in which the experiment 
has not been made.... Truths can only be known to be general, not 
universal, if they depend upon experience alone. Experience can- 
not bestow that universality which she herself cannot have; nor 
that necessity of which she has no comprehension." (Phil. i. pp. 
60, 61.) 

Here is that which must be considered as the cardinal argument 
on this subject. It is therefore important to attend to the answer 
which the Reviewer makes to it. He says, — 

" We conceive that a full answer to this argument is afforded by 
the nature of the inductive propensity, — by the irresistible impulse 
of the mind to generalize ad infinitum, when nothing in the nature 
of limitation or opposition offers itself to the imagination ; and by 
our involuntary application of the law of continuity to fill up, by 
the same ideal substance of truth, every interval which uncontra* 

112 



484 



APPENDIX F. 



' 1\eiir 



dieted expeiience may have left blank in our inductive conclusion." 
(p. 207.) 

Now here we have two rival explanations of the same thing, — 
the conviction of the universality of geometrical truths. The one 
explanation is, that this universality is imposed upon such truths 
by their involving a certain element, derived from the universal 
mode of activity of the mind when apprehending such truths, which 
element I have termed an Idea. The other explanation is, that this 
universality arises from the inductive propensity — from the irresist- 
ible impulse to generalize ad infinitum— irom the involuntary appli- 
cation of the law of continuity— from the filing up all intervals with 
the same ideal substance of truth. 

With regard to these two explanations, I may observe, that so 
far as they are thus stated they do not necessarily differ. They 
both agree in expressing this ; that the ground of the universality 
of geometrical truths is a certain law of the mind's activity, which 
deteimines its procedure when it is concerned in apprehending the 
external world. One explanation says, that we impress upon the 
external world the relations of our ideas, and thus believe more 
than we see, — the other says, that we have an irresistible impulse 
to introduce into our conviction a relation between what we do 
observe and what we do not, namely, to generalize ad infinitum 
from wha'. we do see. One explanation says, that we perceive all 
external objects as included in absolute ideal space, — the other, 
that we fill up the intervals of the objects which we perceive with 
the same ideal substance of truth. Both sets of expressions may 
perhaps be admissible; and if admitted, may be understood as ex- 
pressing the same opinions, or opinions which have much in com- 
mon. The Aiithor's expressions have the advantage, which ought 
to belong to them, as the expressions employed in a systematic 
work, of being fixed expressions, technical phrases, intentionally 
selected, uniformly and steadily employed whenever the occasion 
recurs. The Reviewer's expressions are more lively and figurative, 
and such as well become an occasional composition; but hardly 
such as could be systematically applied to the subject in a regular 
treatise. We could not, as a standard and technical phrase, talk of 
filling up the intervals of observation with the same ideal substance 
of truth ; and the inevitable impulse to generalize would hardly 
sufficiently express that we generalize according to a certain idea, 
namely, the idea of space. Perhaps that which is suggested to us 
as the common import of the two sets of expressions may be con- 
veyed by some other phrase, in a manner free from the objections 
which lie against both the Author's and the Critic's terms. Perhaps 



REMARKS ON A REVIEW, &C. 485 

the mental idea governing our experience, and the irresistible im- 
pulse to generalize our observation, may both be superseded by our 
speaking of a law of the mind's activity, which is really implied in 
both. There operates, in observing the external world, a law of 
the mind's activity, by which it connects its observations; and this 
law of the mind's activity may be spoken of either as the idea of 
space, or as the irresistible impulse to generalize the relations of 
space which it observes. And this expression — the laws of the 
mind's activity — thus opposed to that merely passive function by 
which the mind receives the impressions of sense, may be applied to 
other ideas as well as to the idea of space, and to the impulse to 
generalize in other truths as well as those of geometry. 

So far, it would seem, that the Author and the Critic may be brought 
into much nearer agreement than at first seemed likely, with regard 
to the grounds of the necessity and universality in our knowledge. 
But even if we adopt this conciliatory suggestion, and speak of the 
necessity and universality of certain truths as arising from the laws 
of the mind's activity, we cannot, without producing great con- 
fusion, allow ourselves to say, as the Critic says, that these truths 
are thus derived from experience, or from observation. It will, I 
say, be found fatal to all philosophical precision of thought and 
language, to say that the fundamental truths of geometry, the 
axioms, with the conviction of their necessary truth, are derived 
from experience. Let us take any axiomatic truth of geometry, 
and ask ourselves if this is not so. 

It is, for example, an axiom in geometry that if a straight line 
cut one of two parallel straight lines, it must cut the other also. 
Is this truth derived or derivable from observation of actual parallel 
lines, and a line cutting them, exhibited to our senses ? Let those 
who say that we do acquire this truth by observation, imagine 
to themselves the mode in which the observation must be made. 
We have before us two parallel straight lines, and we see that a 
straight line which cuts the one cuts the other also. We see this 
again in another case, it may be the angles and the distances being 
different, and in a third, and in a fourth ; and so on; and generaliz- 
ing, we are irresistibly led to believe the assertion to be universally 
true. But can any one really imagine this to be the mode in which 
we arrive at this truth? "We see," says this explanation, "two 
parallel straight lines, cut by a third." But how do we know that 
the observed lines are parallel? If we apply any test of parallelism, 
we must assume some property of parallels, and thus involve some 
axiom on the subject, which we have no more right to assume than 
the one now under consideration. We should thus destroy our 



486 



APPENDIX F. 



explanation as an account of the mode of arriving at independent 
geometrical axioms. But probably those who would give such an 
explanation would not do this. They would not suppose that in 
observing this property of parallels we try by measurement whether 
the lines are parallel. They would say, I conceive, that we suppose 
lines to be parallel, and that then we see that the straight line 
which cuts the one must cut the other. That when we make this 
supposition, we are persuaded of the truth of the conclusion, is 
certain. But what I have to remark is, that this being so, the con- 
clusion is the result, not of observation, but of the hypothesis. 
The geometrical truth here spoken of, after this admission, no 
longer flows from experience, but from supposition. It is not that 
we ascertain the lines to be parallel, and then Jind that they have 
this property: but we suppose the lines to be parallel, and therefore 
they have this property. This is not a truth of expeilence. 

This, it may be said, is so evident that it cannot have been over- 
looked by a very acute reasoner, such as you describe your Critic to 
be. "What, it may be asked, is the answer which he gives to so 
palpable an objection as this? How does he understand his asser- 
tion that we learn the truth of geometrical axioms from experience 
(p. 208), so as to make it tenable on his own principles? What 
account does he give of the origin of such axioms which makes them 
in any sense to be derived from experience? 

In justice to the Reviewer's fairness (which is unimpeachable 
throughout his argumentation) it must be stated that he does give 
an account in which he professes to show how this is done. And 
the main step of his explanation consists in introducing the con- 
ception of direction, and unity of direction. He says (p. 208), " The 
nnity of direction, or that we cannot march from a given point by 
more than one path direct to the same object, is a matter of practical 
experience, long before it can by possibility become matter of ab- 
stract thought." We might ask here, as in the former case, how 
this can be a matter of experience, except we have some independ- 
ent test of directness ? and we might demand to know what this 
test is. Or do we not rather, here as in the other case, suppose the 
directness of the path ; and is not the singleness of the direct path 
a consequence, not of its observed form, but of its hypothetical di- 
rectness ; and thus by no means a result of experience ? But we 
may put our remark upon this deduction of the geometrical axiom 
in another form. We generalize, it is said, the observations which 
we have made ever since we were born. But this term "generalize '* 
is far too vague to pass for an explanation, without being itself ex- 
plained. We are impelled to believe that to be true in general 



EEMARKS ON A REVIEW, &C. 487 

■which we see to be true in particular. But how do we see any 
truth ? How do we pick out any proposition with respect to a 
diagram which we see before us ? "We see in particular, and state 
in general, some truth respecting straight lines, or parallel lines, or 
concerning direction. But where do we find the conception of 
straightness, or parallelism, or direction? These conceptions are 
not upon the surface of things. The child does not, from his birth, 
see straightness and parallelism so as to know that he sees them. 
How then does his experience bear upon a proposition in which 
these conceptions are involved ? It is said that it is a matter of 
experience long before it is a matter of abstract thought. But how 
can there be any experience by which we learn these properties of 
a straight line, till our thoughts are at least so abstract as to con- 
ceive what straightness is ? If it be said that this conception grows 
with our experience, and is gradually unfolded with our unfolding 
materials of knowledge, so as to give import and significance to 
them : I need make no objection to such a statement, except this — 
that this power of unfolding out of the mind conceptions which give 
meaning to our experience, is something in addition to the mere 
employment of our senses upon the external world. It is what I 
have called the ideal part of our knowledge. It implies, not only 
an impulse to generalize from experience, but also an impulse to 
form conceptions by which generalization is possible. It requires, 
not only that nothing should oppose the tendency, but that the 
direction in which the tendency is to operate should be determined 
by the laws of the mind's activity; by an internal, uot by an ex- 
ternal agency. 

One main ground on which the Reviewer is disposed to quarrel 
with and reject several of the expressions used in the Philosophy ; — 
such as that space is an idea, a form of our perception, and the 
like, — is this ; that such expressions appear to deprive the external 
world of its reality; to make it, or at least most of its properties, a 
creation of the observing mind. He quotes the following argument 
which is urged in the Philosophy^ in order to prove that space is 
not a notion obtained from experience: "Experience gives us infor- 
mation concerning things without us, but our apprehending them 
as without us takes for granted their existence in space. Experience 
acquaints us with the form, position, magnitude, &c. of particular 
objects, but that they have form, position, magnitude, pre-supposes 
that they are in space." Erom this statement he altogether dissents. 
No, says he, "the reason why we apprehend things as without us is 
that they are without us. We take for granted that they exist in 
space, because they do so exist, and because such their existence is 



488 



APPENDIX F. 



It 



a matter of direct perception, which can neither be explained in 
words nor contravened in imagination : because, in short, space is a 
reality, and not a mere matter of convention or imagination." 

Now, if by calling space an idea, we suggest any doubt of its 
reality and of the reality of the external world, we certainly run the 
risk of misleading our readers; for the external world is real if 
anything be real: the bodies which exist in space are things, if 
things are anywhere to be found. That bodies do exist in space, 
and that that is the reason why we apprehend them as existing 
in space, I readily grant. But I conceive that the term Idea ought 
not to suggest any such doubt of the reality of the knowledge in 
which it is involved. Ideas are always, in our knowledge, conjoined 
with facts. Our real knowledge is knowledge, because it involves 
ideas, real, because it involves facts. We apprehend things as ex- 
isting in space because they do so exist: and our idea of space 
enables us so to observe them, and so to conceive them. 

But we want, further, a reason why, apprehending them as they 
are, we also apprehend, that in certain relations they could not be 
otherwise (that two straight linear objects could not inclose a space, 
for instance). This circumstance is no way accounted for by saying 
that we apprehend them as they are; and is, I presume to say, in- 
explicable, except by supposing that it arises from some property 
of the observing mind : — an Idea, as I have termed it, — an irresis- 
tible Impulse to generalize, as the Reviewer expresses it. Or, as 
I have suggested, we may adopt a third phrase, a Law of the 
mind's activity : and in order that no question may remain, whe- 
ther we ascribe reality to the objects and relations which we ob- 
serve, we may describe it as "a Law of the mind's activity in 
apprehending what is." And thus the real existence of the object, 
and the ideal element which our apprehension of it introduces, 
would both be clearly asserted. 

I am ready to use expressions which recognize the reality of space 
and other external things more emphatically than those expressions 
which I have employed in the Philosophy, if expressions can be 
found which, while they do this, enable us to explain the possibility 
of knowledge, and to analyze the structure of truth. It is, indeed, 
extremely difficult to find, in speaking of this subject, expressions 
which are satisfactory. The reality of the objects which we per- 
ceive is a profound, apparently an insoluble problem ^. We cannot 
but suppose that existence is something different from our knovv- 



1 The.-e remarks were written in 1841. The accompanying Memoir con- 
tains a fm-ther discussion of this problem. 



BEMARKS ON A REVIEW, &C. 489 

ledge of existence: — that wliich exists, does not exist merely in our 
knowing that it does:— truth is truth whether we know it or not. 
Yet how can we conceive truth, otherwise than as something known ? 
How can we conceive things as existi»g, without conceiving them 
as objects of perception ? Ideas and Things are constantly opposed, 
yet necessarily co-existent. How they are thus opposite and yet 
identical, is the ultimate problem of all philosophy. The successive 
phases of philosophy have consisted in separating and again uniting 
these two opposite elements; in dwelling sometimes upon the one 
and sometimes upon the other, as the principal or original or only 
element; and then in discovering that such an account of the state 
of the case was insufficient. Knowledge requires ideas. Reality 
requires things. Ideas and things co-exist. Truth is^ and is known. 
But the complete explanation of these points appears to be beyond 
our reach. At least it is not necessary for the purposes of our 
philosophy. The separation of ideas and sensations in order to 
discover the conditions of knowledge is our main task. How ideas 
and sensations are united so as to form things, does not so imme- 
diately concern us. 

I have stated that we may, without giving up any material por- 
tion of the Philosophy of Science to which I have been led, 
express the conclusions in other phraseology; and that instead of 
saying that all our knowledge involves certain Fundamental Ideas, 
the sources from which all universal truth is derived, we may say 
that there are certain Laws of Mental Activity according to which 
alone all the real relations of things are apprehended. If this 
alteration in the phraseology will make the doctrines more generally 
intelligible or acceptable, there is no reason why it should not be 
adopted. But I may remark, that a main purpose of the PhilO' 
sopJiy was not merely to prove that there are such Fundamental 
Ideas or Laws of mental activity, but to enumerate those of them 
which are involved in the existing sciences ; and to state the funda- 
mental truths to which the fundamental ideas lead. This was the 
tatk which was attempted; and if this have been executed with any 
tolerable success, it may perhaps be received as a contribution to 
the philosophy of science, of which the value is not small, in what- 
ever terms it be expressed. And this enumeration of fundamental 
ideas, and of truths derived from them, must have something to 
correspond to it, in any other mode of expressing that view of the 
nature of knowledge which we are led to adopt. If instead of 
Fundamental Ideas, we speak of Impulses of generalization, or of 
Laws of mental activity, we must still distinguish such Impulses, 
or such Laws, according to the distinctions of ideas to which tho 



49^ APPENDIX F. 

survey of science led us. "We shall thus have a series of groups of 
Laws, or of classes of generalizing Impulses, corresponding to the 
series of Fundamental Ideas already given. If we employ the 
language of the Reviewer, we shall have one generalizing Impulse 
which suggests relations of Space; another which directs us to 
properties of Numbers ; another which deals with Time ; another 
with Cause: another which groups objects according to Likeness; 
another which suggests a purpose as a necessary relation among 
them; to which may be added, even while we confine ourselves to 
the physical sciences, several others, as may be seen in the Philo- 
sophy. Now when the fundamental conditions and elements of 
truth are thus arranged into groups, it is not a matter of so much 
consequence to decide whether each group shall be said to be bound 
together by an idea or by an impulse of generalization ; as it is to 
see that, if this happen in virtue of ideas, here are so many distinct 
ideas which enter into the structure of science, and give universality 
to its matter; and again, if this happen in virtue of an irresistible 
impulse of generalization in each case, we have so many different 
kinds of impulses of generalization. The main purpose in the 
Philosophy was to analyze scientific truth into its conditions and 
elements; and I did not content myself with saying that those ele- 
ments are Sensations and Ideas; the Ideas being that element 
■which makes universal knowledge conceivable and possible, I went 
further: I enumerated the Ideas which thus enter into science. I 
showed that in the sciences which I passed in review, the most 
acute and profound inquirers had taken for granted that certain 
truths in each science are of universal and necessary validity, and 
I endeavoured to select the idea in which this universality and 
necessity resided, and to separate it from all other ideas involved 
in other sciences. If therefore it be thought better to say that those 
principles in each science upon which, as upon the axioms in geo- 
metry, the universality and necessity of scientific truth depends, are 
arrived at, not by ideas, but by an irresistible impulse of generali- 
zation, those who employ such phraseology, if they make a classifi- 
cation of such impulses corresponding to my classification of ideas, 
will still adopt the greater part of my philosophy, altering only the 
phraseology. Or if, as I suggested, instead of "Fundamental 
Ideas," we use the phrase "Laws of Mental Activity," then our 
primary intellectual Code — the Constitution of our minds, as it 
may be termed — will consist of a Body of Laws of which the Titles 
correspond with the Fundamental Ideas of the Philosophy. 

My object was, from the writings of the most sagacious and pro- 
found philosophers who have laboured on each science, to extract 



REMAEKS ON A REVIEW, &C. 49 1 

such a code, such a constitution. If I have in any degree succeeded 
in this, the result must have a reality and a value independently of 
all forms of expression. Still I do not think that any language can 
ever serve for such legislation, in vphich the tvi^o elements of truth 
are not distinguished. Even if we adopt the phraseology which I 
have just employed, we shall have to recollect that Law and Fact 
must be kept distinct, and that the Constitution has its Principles 
as well as its History. 

But I will not longer detain you by seeking other modes of ex- 
pressing the Fundamental Antithesis to which the accompanying 
Memoir refers. The Remarks which I here send you were written 
three years ago, on the appearance of the Review which 1 have 
quoted. If I succeed in obtaining for them a few minutes' atten- 
tion from you and a few other friends, I shall be glad that they 
have been preserved. 

I am, my dear Herschel, 

always truly yours, 

W. WHEWELL. 



P.S. I have abstained from sending you a large portion of my 
Remarks as originally written. I had gone on to show that, in 
my Philosophy, I had not only enumerated and analyzed a great 
number of diflFerent Fundamental Ideas which belong to the diiferent 
existing sciences, but that I had also shown in what manner these 
ideas enter into their respective sciences; namely, by the statement 
or use of Axioms, which involve the ideas, and which form the basis 
of each science when systematically exhibited. A number of these 
Axioms belonging to most of the physical sciences, are stated in the 
Philosophy. I might have added also that I have attempted to clas- 
sify the historical steps by which such Axioms are brought into 
view and applied. But it is not necessary to dwell upon these 
points, in order to illustrate the difference and the agreement 
between the Reviewer and me. 

Sir John F. W. Herschel, Bart, ^c. 




Appendix G. 

OF THE TEANSFOEMATION OF HYPO- 
THESES IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE. 

{Cam. Phil. Soc. May 19, 1851.) 



1. ^THE history of science suggests the reflection that it is very 
difficult for the same person at the same time to do justice 
to two conflicting theories. Take for example the Cartesian hypo- 
thesis of vortices and the Newtonian doctrine of universal gravi- 
tation. The adherents of the earlier opinion resisted the evidence 
of the Newtonian theory with a degree of obstinacy and captious- 
ness which now appears to us quite marvellous : while on the other 
hand, since the complete triumph of the Newtonians, they have 
been unwilling to allow any merit at all to the doctrine of vortices. 
It cannot but seem strange, to a calm observer of such changes, 
that in a matter which depends upon mathematical proofs, the 
whole body of the mathematical world should pass over, as in this 
and similar cases they seem to have done, from an opinion con- 
fidently held, to its opposite. No doubt this must be, in part, 
ascribed to the lasting effects of education and early prejudice. 
The old opinion passes away with the old generation : the new 
theory grows to its full vigour when its congenital disciples grow 
to be masters. John Bernoulli continues a Cartesian to the last 5 
Daniel, his son, is a Newtonian from the first. Newton's doctrines 
are adopted at once in England, for they are the solution of a pro- 
blem at which his contemporaries have been labouring for years. 
They find no adherents in France, where Descartes is supposed to 
have already explained the constitution of the world; and Eon- 
tenelle, tHe secretary of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, dies a 
Cartesian seventy years after the publication of Newton's Principia. 
This is, no doubt, a part of the explanation of the pertinacity with 
which opinions are held, both before and after a scientific revolu- 
tion : but this is not the whole, nor perhaps the most instructive 
aspect of the subject. There is another feature in the change, 



TRANSFORMATION OF HYPOTHESES, &C. 493 

which explains, in some degree, how it is possible that, in subjects, 
mainly at least mathematical, and therefore claiming demonstrative 
evidence, mathematicians should hold different and even opposite 
opinions. And the object of the present paper is to point out this 
feature in the successions of theories, and to illustrate it by some 
prominent examples drawn from the history of science. 

2. The feature to which I refer is this ; that when a prevalent 
theory is found to be untenable, and consequently, is succeeded by 
a different, or even by an opposite one, the change is not made 
suddenly, or completed at once, at least in the minds of the most 
tenacious adherents of the earlier doctrine ; but is effected by a 
transformation, or series of transformations, of the earlier hypo- 
thesis, by means of which it is gradually brought nearer and 
nearer to the second; and thus, the defenders of the ancient doc- 
trine are able to go on as if still asserting their first opinions, and 
to continue to press their points of advantage, if they have any, 
against the new theory. They borrow, or imitate, and in some 
way accommodate to their original hypothesis, the new explana- 
tions which the new theory gives, of the observed facts ; and thus 
they maintain a sort of verbal consistency; till the original hypo- 
thesis becomes inextricably confused, or breaks down under the 
weight of the auxiliary hypotheses thus fastened upon it, in order 
to make it consistent with the facts. 

This often-occurring course of events might be illustrated from 
the history of the astronomical theory of epicycles and eccentrics, 
as is well known. But my present purpose is to give one or two 
brief illustrations of a somewhat similar tendency from other parts 
of scientific history; and in the first place, from that part which 
has already been referred to, the battle of the Cartesian and New- 
tonian systems. 

3. The part of the Cartesian system of vortices which is most 
familiarly known to general readers is the explanation of the motioiis 
of the planets by supposing them carried round the sun by a kind of 
whirlpool of fluid matter in which they are immersed: and the ex- 
planation of the motions of the satellites round their primaries by 
similar subordinate whirlpools, turning round the primary, and 
carried, along with it, by the primary vortex. But it should be 
borne in mind that a part of the Cartesian hypothesis which was 
considered quite as important as the cosmical explanation, was tlie 
explanation which it was held to afford of terrestrial gravity. Ter- 
restrial gravity was asserted to arise from the motion of the vortex 
of subtle matter which revolved round the earth's axis and filled 
the surrounding space. It was maintained that by tlie rotation of 



494 APPENDIX G. 

such a vortex, the particles of the subtle matter would exert a 
centrifugal force, and by virtue of that force, tend to recede from 
the center: and it was held that all bodies which were near the 
earth, and therefore immersed in the vortex, would be pressed to- 
wards the center by the effort of the subtle matter to recede from 
the center ^. 

These two assumed effects of the Cartesian vortices — to carry 
bodies in their stream, as straws are carried round by a whirlpool, 
and to press bodies to the center by the centrifugal effort of the 
whirling matter — must be considered separately, because they were 
modified separately, as the progress of discussion drove the Carte- 
sians from point to point. The former effect indeed, the dragging 
force of the vortex, as we may call it, would not bear working out 
on mechanical principles at all ; for as soon as the law of motion 
was acknowledged (which Descartes himself was one of the loudest 
in proclaiming), that a body in motion keeps all the motion which it 
has, and receives in addition all that is impressed upon it; as soon, 
in short, as philosophers rejected the notion of an inertness in 
matter which constantly retards its movements, — it was plain that 
a planet perpetually dragged onwards in its orbit by a fluid moving 
quicker than itself, must be perpetually accelerated ; and therefore 
could not follow those constantly-recurring cycles of quicker and 
slower motion which the planets exhibit to us. 

The Cartesian mathematicians, then, left untouched the calcu- 
lation of the progressive motion of the planets; and, clinging to 
the assumption that a vortex would produce a tendency of bodies 
to the center, made various successive efforts to construct their 
vortices in such a manner that the centripetal forces produced by 
them should coincide with those which the phenomena required, 
and therefore of course, in the end, with those which the Newtonian 
theory asserted. 

In truth, the Cartesian vortex was a bad piece of machinery for 
producing a central force : from the first, objections were made to 
the sufficiency of its mechanism, and most of these objections were 
very unsatisfactorily answered, even granting the additional machi- 
nery which its defenders demanded. One formidable objection was 
soon started, and continued to the last to be the torment of the 
Cartesians. If terrestrial gravity, it was urged, arise from the 
centrifugal force of a vortex which revolves about the earth's axis, 
terrestrial gravity ought to act in planes perpendicular to the 



Cartes. PHncip. iv. 23. 



TRA^'SFORMATION OF HYPOTHESES, &C. 495 

earth's axis, instead of tending to the earth's center. This objec- 
tion was taken by James Bernoulli^, and by Huyghens^ not long 
after the publication of Descartes's Principia. Huyghens (who 
adopted the theory of vortices with modifications of his own) sup- 
poses that there are particles of the fluid matter which move about 
the earth in every possible direction, within the spherical space 
which includes terrestrial objects ; and that the greater part of 
these motions being in spherical surfaces concentric with the earth, 
produces a tendency towards the earth's center. 

This was a procedure tolerably arbitrary, but it was the best 
which could be done. Saurin, a little later*, gave nearly the same 
solution of this difficulty. The solution, identifying a vortex of 
some kind with a central force, made the hypothesis of vortices 
applicable wherever central forces existed; but then, in return, it 
deprived the image of a vortex of all that clearness and simplicity 
which had been its first great recommendation. 

But still there remained difficulties not less formidable. Accord- 
ing to this explanation of gravity, since the tendency of bodies to 
the earth's center arose from the superior centrifugal force of the 
whirling matter which pushed them inward as water pushes a light 
body upward, bodies ought to tend more strongly to the center in 
proportion as they are less dense. The rarest bodies should be the 
heaviest ; contrary to what we find, 

Descartes's original solution of this difficulty has a certain degree 
of ingenuity. According to him {Princip. rv. 23) a terrestrial body 
consists of particles of the third element, and the more it has of such 
particles, the more it excludes the parts of the celestial matter, 
from the revolution of which matter gravity arises ; and therefore 
the denser is the terrestrial body, and the heavier it will be. 

But though this might satisfy him, it could not satisfy the mathe- 
maticians who followed him, and tried to reduce his system to 
calculation on mechanical principles. For how could they do this, 
if the celestial matter, by the operation of which the phenomena of 
force and motion were produced, was so entirely diflPerent from 
ordinary matter, which alone had supplied men with experimental 



2 Jac. Bernoulli, NouvelUs Fe'asees Bulfinger, in 1726 (Acad. Petrop.), 

sur le Systeme de M. Descartes, op. t. conceived that by making a sphere 

i. p. 239 (1686). revolve at the same time about two 

^ DelaCausedelaPesanteur(i68g), axes at right angles to each other, 

p. 135. every particle would describe a great 

* Journal des Savans, 1703. Mem. circle; but this is not so. 
Acad. Par. 1709, 



496 



APPENDIX G. 



illustrations of mechanical principles ? In order that the celestial 
matter, by its whirling, might produce the gravity of heavy bodies, 
it was mechanically necessary that it must be very dense; and dense 
in the ordinary sense of the term ; for it was by regarding density 
in the ordinary sense of the term that the mechanical necessity had 
been established. 

The Cartesians tried to escape this result (Huyghens, Pesanteur, 
p. 161, and John Bernoulli, Nouvelles Pensees, Art. .31) by saying 
that there were two meanings of density and rarity; that some 
fluids might be rare by having their particles far asunder, others, by 
having their particles very small though in contact. But it is diffi- 
cult to think that they could, as persons well acquainted with 
mechanical principles, satisfy themselves with this distinction ; for 
they could hardly fail to see that the mechanical effect of any por- 
tion of fluid depends upon the total mass moved, not on the size of 
its particles. 

Attempts made to exemplify the vortices experimentally only 
showed more clearly the force of this difficulty. Huyghens had 
found that certain bodies immersed in a whirling fluid tended to 
the center of the vortex. But when Saulmon^ a little later made 
similar experiments, he had the mortification of finding that the 
heaviest bodies had the greatest tendency to recede from the axis 
of the vortex. " The result is," as the Secretary of the Academy 
(Fontenelle) says, "exactly the opposite of what we could have 
wished, for the [Cartesian] system of gravity : but we are not to 
despair; sometimes in such researches disappointment leads to ulti- 
mate success." 

But, passing by this difficulty, and assuming that in some way or 
other a centripetal force arises from the centrifugal force of the 
vortex, the Cartesian mathematicians were naturally led to calcu- 
late the circumstances of the vortex on mechanical principles ; espe- 
cially Huyghens, who had successfully studied the subject of centri- 
fugal force. Accordingly, in his little treatise on the Cause of 
Gravitation (p. 143), he calculates the velocity of the fluid matter of 
the vortex, and finds that, at a point in the equator, it is 17 times 
the velocity of the earth's rotation. 

It may naturally be asked, how it comes to pass that a stream of 
fluid, dense enough to produce the gravity of bodies by its centri- 
fugal force, moving with a velocity 17 times that of the earth (and 
therefore moving round the earth in 85 minutes), does not sweep 



* Acad. Far. 17 14, Hid. p. 106. 



TRANSFOEMATION OF HYPOTHESES, &C. 497 

all terrestrial objects before it. But to this Huyghens had already 
replied (p. 137), that there are particles of the fluid moTing in all 
directions, and therefore that they neutralize each other's action, so 
far as lateral motion is concerned. 

And thus, as early as this treatise of Huyghens, that is, in three 
years from the publication of Newton's Principia, a vortex is made 
to mean nothing more than some machinery or other for producing 
a central force. And this is so much the case, that Huyghens com- 
mends (p. 165), as confirming his own calculation of the velocity of 
his vortex, Newton's proof that at the Moon's orbit the centripetal 
force is equal to the centrifugal; and that thus, this force is less 
than the centripetal force at the earth's surface in the inverse pro- 
portion of the squares of the distances. 

John Bernoulli, in the same manner, but with far less clearness 
and less candour, has treated the hypothesis of vortices as being 
principally a hypothetical cause of central force. He had repeated 
occasions given him of propounding his inventions for propping up 
the Cartesian doctrine, by the subjects proposed for prizes by the 
Paris Academy of Sciences ; in which competition Cartesian specu- 
lations were favourably received. Thus the subject of the Prize 
Essays for 1730 was, the explanation of the Elliptical Form of the 
planetary orbits and of the Motion of their Aphelia, and the prize 
was assigned to John Bernoulli, who gave the explanation on Car- 
tesian principles. He explains the elliptical figure, not as Descartes 
himself had done, by supposing the vortex which carries the planet 
round the sun to be itself squeezed into an elliptical form by the 
pressure of contiguous vortices ; but he supposes the planet, while 
it is carried round by the vortex, to have a limited oscillatory 
motion to and from the center, produced by its being originally, 
not at the distance at which it would float in equilibrium in the 
vortex, but above or below that point. On this supposition, the 
planet would oscillate to and from the center, Bernoulli says, like 
the mercury when deranged in a barometer: and it is evident that 
such an oscillation, combined with a motion round the center? 
might produce an oval curve, either with a fixed or with a move- 
able aphelion. All this however merely amounts to a possibility 
that the oval may be an ellipse, not to a proof that it will be so ; 
nor does Bernoulli advance further. 

It was necessary that the vortices should be adjusted in such 
a manner as to account for Kepler's laws ; and this was to be done 
by making the velocity of each stratum of the vortex depend in 
a suitable manner on its radius. The Abb^ de Molieres attempted 
this on the supposition of elliptical vortices, but could not reconcile 

KK 



49 8 APPENDIX G. 

Kepler's first two laws, of equal elliptical areas in equal times, with 
his third law, that the squares of the periodic times are as the cubes 
of the mean distances^. Bernoulli, with his circular vortices, could 
accommodate the velocities at different distances so that they should 
explain Kepler's laws. He pretended to prove that Newton's in- 
vestigations respecting vortices (in the ninth Section of the Second 
Book of the Principid) were mechanically erroneous; and in truth, 
it must be allowed that, besides several arbitrary assumptions, there 
are some errors of reasoning in them. But for the most part, the 
more enlightened Cartesians were content to accept Newton's ac- 
count of the motions and forces of the solar system as part of their 
scheme; and to say only that the hypothesis of vortices explained 
the origin of the Newtonian forces ; and that thus theirs was a 
philosophy of a higher kind. Thus it is asserted {Mem. Acad. 1734), 
that M. de Molieres retains the beautiful theory of Newton en- 
tire, only he renders it in a sort less Newtonian, by disentangling 
it from attraction, and transferring it from a vacuum into a plenum. 
This plenum, though not its native region, frees it from the need of 
attraction, which is all the better for it. These points were the 
main charms of the Cartesian doctrine in the eyes of its followers; 
— the getting rid of attractions, which were represented as a revival 
of the Aristotelian "occult qualities," "substantial fprms," or 
wiiatever else was the most disparaging way of describing the bad 
philosophy of the dark ages'"; — and the providing some material 
intermedium, by means of which a body may affect another at a 
distance; and thus avoid the reproach urged against the Newton- 
ians, that they made a body act where it was not. And we are the 
less called upon to deny that this last feature in the Newtonian 
theory was a difficulty, inasmuch as Newton himself was never 



6 Acad. Par. 1733. motions of tlie primary planets, all 

7 Acad. Sc. 1709. If we abandon the motions of the satellites, and all 
the clear principles of mechanics, the the motions of rotation, including 
writer says, " toute la liuniere que that of the sun, are in the same direc- 
nous pouvons avoir est gteinte, et tion, and nearly in the same plane ; 
nous voila replonges de nouveau facts which have been urged by La- 
dans les anciennes tenebres du Peri- place as so strongly recommending 
patetisme, dont le Ciel nous veiulle the Nebular Hypothesis; and that 
preserver!" hypothesis is, in truth, a hypothesis 

It was also objected to the New- of vortices respecting the origin of 

tonian system, that it did not accoimt the system of the world. 
for the remarkable facts, that all the 



TRANSFORMATION OF HYPOTHESES, &C. 499 

unwilling to allow that gravity might be merely an effect produced 
by some ulterior cause. 

"With such admissions on the two sides, it is plain that the New- 
tonian and Cartesian systems would coincide, if the hypothesis of 
vortices could be modified in such a way as to produce the force 
of gravitation. All attempts to do this, however, failed : and 
even John Bernoulli, the most obstinate of the mathematical cham- 
pions of the vortices, was obliged to give them up. In his Prize 
Essay for 1734, (on the Inclinations of the Planetary Orbits^,) he 
says (Art. VIII.), "The gravitation of the Planets towards the center 
of the Sun and the weight of bodies towards the center of the earth 
has not, for its cause, either the attraction of M. Newton, or the 
centrifugal force of the matter of the vortex according to M. Des- 
cartes ; " and he then goes on to assert that these forces are pro- 
duced by a perpetual torrent of matter tending to the center on 
all sides, and carrying all bodies with it. Such a hypothesis is very 
difficult to refute. It has been taken up in more modern times by 
Le Sage^, with some modifications; and maybe made to account 
for the principal facts of the universal gravitation of matter. The 
great difficulty in the way of such a hypothesis is, the overwhelming 
thought of the whole universe filled with torrents of an invisible but 
material and tangible substance, rushing in every direction in infi- 
nitely prolonged straight lines and with immense velocity. Whence 
can such matter come, and whither can it go ? Where can be its 
perpetual and infinitely distant fountain, and where the ocean into 
which it pours itself when its infinite course is ended ? A revolv- 
ing whirlpool is easily conceived and easily supplied ; but the 
central torrent of Bernoulli, the infinite streams of particles of 
Le Sage, are an explanation far more inconceivable than the thing 
explained. 

But however the hypothesis of vortices, or some hypothesis sub- 
stituted for it, was adjusted to explain the facts of attraction to 
a center, this wa? really nearly all that was meant by a vortex 



8 Nouvelle Physique Celeste, Op, t. at least rendered evident. Bernoulli's 

iii. p. 163. explanation consists in supposing the 

The deviation of the orbits of the planets to have a sort of leeway (de- 

planets from the plane of the sim's rive des vaisseaux) in the stream of 

equator was of coivrse a difficulty in the vortex. 

the system which supposed that they 9 See Hist. Sc. Ideas, b. iiL c. ix. 

were carried round by the vortices Art. 7. 
which the sun's rotation caused, or 

kk2 



500 APPENDIX G. 

or a "tourbillon," when the system was applied. Thus in the case 
of the last act of homage to the Cartesian theory which the French 
Academy rendered in the distribution of its prizes, the designa- 
tion of a Cartesian Essay in 1741 (along with three Newtonian 
ones) as worthy of a prize for an explanation of the Tides; the 
difference of high and low water was not explained, as Descartes 
has explained it, by the pressure, on the ocean, of the terrestrial 
vortex, forced into a strait where it passes under the Moon; but 
the waters were supposed to rise towards the Moon, the terrestrial 
vortex being disturbed and broken by the Moon, and therefore less 
effective in forcing them down. And in giving an account of a 
Tourmaline from Ceylon (Acad. Sc. 1717), when it has been ascer- 
tained that it attracts and repels substances, the writer adds, as 
a matter of course, "It would seem that it has a vortex." As 
another example, the elasticity of a body was ascribed to vortices 
between its particles: and in general, as I have said, a vortex 
implied what we now imply by speaking of a central force. 

4. In the same manner vortices were ascribed to the Magnet, 
in order to account for its attractions and repulsions. But we may 
note a circumstance which gave a special turn to the hypothesis 
of vortices as applied to this subject, and which may serve as a 
further illustration of the manner in which a transition may be 
made from one to the other of two rival hypotheses. 

If iron filings be brought near a magnet, in such a manner 
as to be at liberty to assume the position which its polar action 
assigns to them; (for instance, by strewing them upon a sheet of 
paper while the two poles of the magnet are close below the paper;) 
they will arrange themselves in certain curves, each proceeding 
from the N. to the S. pole of the magnet, like the meridians in 
a map of the globe. It is easily shown, on the supposition of 
magnetic attraction and repulsion, that these magnetic curves^ as 
they are termed, are each a curve whose tangent at every point is 
the direction of a small line or particle, as determined by the 
attraction and repulsion of the two poles. But if we suppose a 
magnetic vortex constantly to flow out of one pole and into the 
other, in streams which follow such curves, it is evident that such a 
vortex, being supposed to exercise material pressure and impulse, 
would arrange the iron filings in corresponding streams, and would 
thus produce the phenomenon which I have described. And the 
hypothesis of central torrents of Bernoulli or Le Sage which I have 
referred to, would, in its application to magnets, really become this 
hypothesis of a magnetic vortex, if we further suppose that the 
matter of the torrents which proceed to one pole and from the 



TRANSFORMATION OF HYPOTHESES^ &C. 5OI 

other, mingles its streams, so as at each point to produce a stream 
in the resulting direction. Of course Ave shall have to suppose two 
sets of magnetic torrents;— a boreal torrent, proceeding to the 
north pole, and from the south pole of a magnet ; and an austral 
torrent proceeding to the south and from the north pole: — and 
with these suppositions, we make a transition from the hypothesis 
of attraction and repulsion, to the Cartesian hypothesis of vortices, 
or at least, torrents, which determine bodies to their magnetic 
positions by impulse. 

Of course it is to be expected that, in this as in the other case, 
when we follow the hypothesis of impulse into detail, it will need to 
be loaded with so many subsidiary hypotheses, in order to accom- 
modate it to the phenomena, that it will no longer seem tenable. 
But the plausibility of the hypothesis in its first application cannot 
be denied : — for, it may be observed, the two opposite streams 
would counteract each other so as to produce no local motion, 
only direction. And this case may put us on our guard against 
other suggestions of forces acting in curve lines, M'hich may at 
first sight appear to be discerned in magnetic and electric phe- 
nomena. Probably such curve lines will all be found to be only 
resulting lines, arising from the direct action and combination of 
elementary attraction and repulsion. 

5. There is another case in which it would not be difficult 
to devise a mode of transition from one to the other of two rival 
theories; namely, in the case of the emission theory and the un- 
dulation theory of Light. Indeed several steps of such a transi- 
tion have already appeared in the history of optical speculation ; 
and the conclusive objection to the emission theory of light, as 
to the Cartesian theory of vortices, is, that no amount of additional 
hypotheses will reconcile it to the phenomena. Its defenders had 
to go on adding one piece of machinery after another, as new 
classes of facts came into view, till it became more complex and 
unmechanical than the theory of epicycles and eccentrics at its 
worst period. Otherwise, as I have said, there was nothing to 
prevent the emission theory from migrating into the undulatory 
theory, and as the theory of vortices did into the theory of attrac- 
tion. For the emissionists allow that rays may interfere; and 
that these interferences may be modified by alternate ^^^ in the 
rays; now these fits are already a kind of undulation. Then again 
the phenomena of polarized light show that the fits or undulations 
must have a transverse character : and there is no reason why emit- 
ted rays should not be subject to fits of transverse modification as 
well as to any other fits. In short, we may add to the emitted rays 



502 APPENDIX G. 

of the one theory, all the properties which belong to the undula- 
tions of the other, and thus account for all the phenomena on the 
emission theory; with this limitation only, that the emission will 
have no share in the explanation, and the undulations will have 
the whole. If, instead of conceiving the universe full of a sta- 
tionary ether, we suppose it to be full of etherial particles moving 
in every direction ; and if we suppose, in the one case and in the 
other, this ether to be susceptible of undulations proceeding from 
every luminous point; the results of the two hypotheses will be the 
same; and all we shall have to say is, that the supposition of the 
emissive motion of the particles is superfluous and useless. 

6. This view of the manner in which rival theories pass into one 
another appears to be so unfamiliar to those who have only slightly 
attended to the history of science, that I have thought it might be 
worth while to illustrate it by a few examples. 

It might be said, for instance, by such persons''^, "Either the 
planets are not moved by vortices, or they do not move by the law 
by which heavy bodies fall. It is impossible that both opinions can 
be true." But it appears, by what has been said above, that the 
Cartesians did hold both opinions to be true; and one with just as 
much reason as the other, on their assumptions. It might be said 
in the same manner, "Either it is false that the planets are made to 
describe their orbits by the above quasi- Cartesian theory of Ber- 
noulli, or it is false that they obey the Newtonian theory of gravi- 
tation." But this would be said quite erroneously ; for if the hypo- 
thesis of Bernoulli be true, it is so because it agrees in its result 
with the theory of Newton. It is not only possible that both 
opinions may be true, but it is certain that if the first be so, the 
second is. It might be said again, ^' Either the planets describe 
their orbits by an inherent virtue, or according to the Newtou 
theory." But this again would be erroneous, for the Newtonian 
doctrine decided nothing as to whether the force of gravitation 
was inherent or not. Cotes held that it was, though Newton 
strongly protested against being supposed to hold such an opinion. 
The word inherent is no part of the physical theory, and will be 
asserted or denied according to our metaphysical views of the 
essential attributes of matter and force. 

Of course, the possibility of two rival hypotheses being true, 
one of which takes the explanation a step higher than the other, 
is not affected by the impossibility of two contradictory asser- 



10 See ]Mill's Logic, vol. i p. sir. 2nd ed. 



TRANSFORMATION OF HYPOTHESES, &C. 503 

tions of the same order of generality being both true. If there 
be a new-discovered comet, and if one astronomer asserts that 
it will return once in every twenty years, and another, that it 
will return once in every thirty years, both cannot be right. 
But if an astronomer says that though its interval was in the last 
instance 30 years, it will only be 20 years to the next return, in 
consequence of perturbation and resistance, he may be perfectly 
right. 

And thus, when different and rival explanations of the same 
phenomena are held, till one of them, though long defended by 
ingenious men, is at last driven out of the field by the pressure of 
facts, the defeated hypothesis is transformed before it is extin- 
guished. Before it has disappeared, it has been modified so as to 
have all palpable falsities squeezed out of it, and subsidiary provi- 
sions added, in order to reconcile it with the phenomena. It has, 
in short, been penetrated, infiltrated, and metamorphosed by the 
surrounding medium of truth, before the merely arbitrary and erro- 
neous residuum has been finally ejected out of the body of perma^ 
nent and certain knowledge. 



Appendix H. 

ON HEGEL'S CEITICISM OF NEWTON'S 
PRINCIPIA. 

{Cam. Phil. Soc. May 21, 1849.) 



^THE Newtonian doctrine of universal gravitation, as the cause of 
^ the motions which take place in the solar system, is so entirely 
established in our minds, and the fallacy of all the ordinary argu- 
nients against it is so clearly understood among us, that it would 
undoubtedly be deemed a waste of time to argue such questions in 
this place, so far as physical truth is concerned. But since in other 
parts of Europe, there are teachers of philosophy whose reputation 
and influence are very great, and who are sometimes referred to 
among our own countrymen as the authors of new and valuable 
views of truth, and who yet reject the Newtonian opinions, and deny 
the validity of the proofs commonly given of them, it may be worth 
while to attend for a few minutes to the declarations of such 
teachers, as a feature in the present condition of European philo- 
sophy. 1 the more readily assume that the Cambridge Philosophical 
Society will not think a communication on such a subject devoid of 
interest, in consequence of the favourable reception which it has 
given to philosophical speculations still more abstract, which I have 
on previous occasions offered to it. I will therefore proceed to 
make some remarks on the opinions concerning the Newtonian 
doctrine of gravitation, delivered by the celebrated Hegel, of Berlin, 
than whom no philosopher in modern, and perhaps hardly any even 
in ancient times, has had his teaching received with more reverential 
submission by his disciples, or been followed by a more numerous 
and zealous band of scholars bent upon diffusing and applying his 
principles. 

The passages to which I shall principally refer are taken from one 
of his works which is called the Encyclopcedia (Encyklopadie), of 
which the First Part is the Science of Logic, the Second, the Philosophy 
of Nature, the Third, the Philosophy of Spirit. The Second Part, 



CRITICISM OF XEWTONS PRINCIPIA. 505 

with which I am here concerned, has for an alite.r title, Lectures on 
Natural Philosophy (Vorlesungen liber Natur-philosophie), and 
would through its whole extent offer abundant material for criticism, 
by referring it to principles with which we are here familiar : but I 
shall for the present confine myself to that part which refers to the 
subject which I have mentioned, the Newtonian Doctrine of Gravi- 
tation, § 269, 270, of the work. Nor shall I, with regard to this 
part, think it necessary to give a continuous and complete criticism 
of all the passages bearing upon the subject ; but only such speci- 
mens, and such remarks thereon, as may suffice to show in a general 
manner the value and the character of Hegel's declarations on such 
questions. I do not pretend to offer here any opinion upon the 
value and character of Hegel's philosophy in general : but I think 
it not unlikely that some impression on that head may be suggested 
by the examination, here offered, of some points in which we can 
have no doubt where the truth lies ; and I am not at all persuaded 
that a like examination of many other parts of the Hegelian 
EncyclopcBdia would not confirm the impression which we shall 
receive from the parts now to be considered. 

Hegel both criticises the Newtonian doctrines, or what he states 
as such; and also, not denying the truth of the laws of phenomena 
which he refers to, for instance Kepler's laws, offers his own proof 
of these laws. I shall make a few brief remarks on each of these 
portions of the pages before me. And I would beg it to be under- 
stood that where I may happen to put my remarks in a short, and 
what may seem a peremptory form, I do so for the sake of saving 
time ; knowing that among us, upon subjects so familiar, a few 
words will suffice. Por the same reason, I shall take passages from 
Hegel, not in the order in which they occur, but in the order in 
which they best illustrate what I have to say. I shall do Hegel no 
injustice by this mode of proceeding : for I will annex a faithful 
translation, so far as I can make one, of the whole of the passages 
referred to, with the context. 

No one will be surprised that a German, or indeed any lover of 
science, should speak with admiration of the discovery of Kepler's 
laws, as a great event in the history of Astronomy, and a glorious 
distinction to the discoverer. But to say that the glory of the dis- 
covery of the proof of these laws has been unjustly transferred from 
Kepler to Newton, is quite another matter. This is what Hegel 
says {ay. And we have to consider the reasons which he assigns 
for saying so. 



1 These letters refer to passages in the Translation annexed to this Memoir. 



50 6 APPENDIX H. 

He says (&) that "it is allowed by mathematicians that the New- 
tonian Formula maybe derived from the Keplerian laws," and hence 
he seems to infer that the Newtonian law is not an additional truth. 
That is, he does not allow that the discovery of the cause which 
produces a certain phenomenal law is anything additional to the 
discovery of the law itself. 

" The Newtonian formula may be derived from the Keplerian 
law." It was professedly so derived; but derived by introducing 
the Idea of Force, which Idea and its consequences were not intro- 
duced and developed till after Kepler's time. 

" The Newtonian formula may be derived from the Keplerian 
law." And the Keplerian law may be derived, and was derived, 
from the observations of the Greek astronomers and their suc- 
cessors ; but was not the less a new and great discovery on that 
account. 

But let us see what he says further of this derivation of the New- 
tonian "formula" from the Keplerian Law. It is evident that by 
calling it a, formula, he means to imply, what he also asserts, that it 
is no new law, but only a new form (and a bad one) of a previously 
known truth. 

How is the Newtonian "formula," that is, the law of the inverse 
squares of the central force, derived from the Keplerian law of the 
cubes of the distances proportional to the squares of the times ? 
This, says Hegel, is the " immediate derivation." (c). — By Kepler's 

law, A being the distance and T the periodic time, -^ is constant. 

But Newton calls •— universal gravitation ; whence it easily follows 

that gravitation is inversely as A^. 

This is Hegel's way of representing Newton's proof. Reading 
it, any one who had never read the Principia might suppose that 

Newton defined gravitation to be ^. We, who have read the 

Principia^ know that Newton proves that in circles, the central 

force (not the universal gravitation') is as — : that he proves this, 

by setting out from the idea of force, as that which deflects a body 
from the tangent, and makes it describe a curved line : and that in 
this way, he passes from Kepler's laws of mere motion to his own 
law of Force. 

But Hegel does not see any value in this. Such a mode of 
treating the subject he says (i) " offers to us a tangled web, formed 
of the Lines of the mere gieometrical construction, to which a 



CRITICISM OF NEWTON S PRINCIPIA. 507 

physical meaning of independent forces is given." That a measure 
of forces is found in such lines as the sagitta of the arc described in 
a given time, (not such a meaning arbitrarily given to them,) is 
certainly true, and is very distinctly proved in Newton, and in all our 
elementary books. 

But, says Hegel, as further showing the artificial nature of the 
Newtonian formulae, (h) "Analysis has long been able to derive the 
Newtonian expression and the laws therewith connected out of the 
Form of the Keplerian Laws;" an assertion, to verify which he 
refers to Francceur's Mecanigue. This is apparently in order to show 
that the ** lines " of the Newtonian construction are superfluous. 
We know very well that analysis does not always refer to visible 
representations of such lines : but we know too, (and Francoeur 
would testify to this also,) that the analytical proofs contain equi- 
valents to the Newtonian lines. We, in this place, are too familiar 
with the substitution of analytical for geometrical proofs, to be led 
to suppose that such a substitution affects the substance of the 
truth proved. The conversion of Newton's geometrical proofs of 
his discoveries into analytical processes by succeeding writers, has 
not made them cease to be discoveries : and accordingly, those 
who have taken the most prominent share in such a conversion, 
have been the most ardent admirers of Newton's genius and good 
fortune. 

So much for Newton's comparison of the Forces in different cir- 
cular orbits, and for Hegel's power of understanding and criticising 
it. Now let us look at the motion in different parts of the same 
elliptical orbit, as a further illustration of the value of Hegel's 
criticism. In an elliptical orbit the velocity alternately increases 
and diminishes. This follows necessarily from Kepler's law of the 
equal description of the areas, and so Newton explains it. Hegel, 
however, treats of this acceleration and retardation as a separate 
fact, and talks of another explanation of it, founded upon Centri- 
petal and Centrifugal Force (o). Where he finds this explanation, 
I know not; certainly not in Newton, who in the second and third 
section of the Principia explains the variation of the velocity in a 
quite different manner, as I have said; and nowhere, I think, em- 
ploys centrifugal force in his explanations. However, the notion 
of centrifugal as acting along with centripetal force is introduced 
in some treatises, and may undoubtedly be used with perfect truth 
and propriety. How far Hegel can judge when it is so used, we 
may see from what he says of the confusion produced by such an 
explanation, which is, he says, a maximum. In the first place, he 
speaks of the motion being uniformly accelerated and retarded in 



508 APPENDIX H. 

an elliptical orbit, which, in any exact use of the word uniformly, 
it is not. But passing by this, he proceeds to criticise an explana- 
tion, not of the variable velocity of the body in its orbit, but of the 
alternate access and recess of the body to and from the center. 
Let us overlook this confusion also, and see what is the value of his 
criticism on the explanation. He says {p), " according to this ex- 
planation, in the motion of a planet from the aphelion to the peri- 
helion, the centrifugal is less than the centripetal force ; and in the 
perihelion itself the centripetal force is supposed suddenly to 
become greater than the centrifugal;" and so, of course, the body 
re-ascends to the aphelion. 

Now I will not say that this explanation has never been given in 
a book professing to be scientific; but I have never seen it given ; 
and it never can have been given but by a very ignorant and foolish 
person. It goes upon the utterly unmechanical supposition that 
the approach of a body to the center at any moment depends solely 
upon the excess of the centripetal over the centrifugal force; and 
reversely. But the most elementary knowledge of mechanics shows 
us that when a body is moving obliquely to the distance from the 
center, it approaches to or recedes from the center in virtue of this 
obliquity, even if no force at all act. And the total approach to 
the center is the approach due to this cause, plus the approach due 
to the centripetal force, minus the recess due to the centrifugal force. 
At the aphelion, the centripetal is greater than the centrifugal 
force; and ^ence the motion becomes oblique; and then, the body 
approaches to the center on both accounts, and approaches on 
account of the obliquity of the path even when the centrifugal has 
become greater than the centripetal force, which it becomes before 
the body reaches the perihelion. This reasoning is so elementary, 
that when a person who cannot see this, writes on the subject with 
an air of authority, I do not see what can be done but to point out 
the oversight and leave it. 

But there is, says Hegel (g), another way of explaining the mo- 
tion by means of centripetal and centrifugal forces. The two forces 
are supposed to increase and decrease gradually, according to dif- 
ferent laws. In this case, there must be a point where they are equal, 
and in equilibrio ; and this being the case, they will always continue 
equal, for there will be no reason for their going out of equilibrium. 

This, which is put as another mode of explanation, is, in fact, the 
same mode; for, as I have already said, the centrifugal force, which 
is less than the centripetal at the aphelion, becomes the greater of 
the two before the perihelion ; and there is an intermediate position, 
at which the two forces are equal. But at this point, is there no 



CRITICISM OF NEWTON S PRINCIPIA. 509 

reason why, being equal, the forces should become unequal? Reason 
abundant : for the body, being there, moves in a line oblique to the 
distance, and so changes its distance; and the centripetal and cen- 
trifugal force, depending upon the distance by different laws, they 
forthwith become unequal. 

But these modes of explanation, by means of the centripetal and 
centrifugal forces and their relation, are not necessary to Newton's 
doctrine, and are nowhere used by Newton; and undoubtedly much 
confusion has been produced in other minds, as well as Hegel's, by 
speaking of the centrifugal force, which is a mere intrinsic geome- 
trical result of a body's curvilinear motion round a center, in con- 
junction with centripetal force, which is an extrinsic force, acting 
upon the body and urging it to the center. Neither Newton, nor 
any intelligent Newtonian, ever spoke of the centripetal and cen- 
trifugal force as two distinct forces both extrinsic to the motion, 
which Hegel accuses them of doing, (n) 

I have spoken of the third and second of Kepler's laws; of New- 
ton's explanations of them, and of Hegel's criticism. Let us now, 
in the same manner, consider the first law, that the planets move 
in ellipses. Newton's proof that this was the result of a central 
force varying inversely as the square of the distance, was the solu- 
tion of a problem at which his contemporaries had laboured in vain, 
and is commonly looked upon as an important step. "But," says 
Hegel, {d) " the proof gives a conic section generally, whereas the 
main point which ought to be proved is, that the path of the body 
is an ellipse only, not a circle or any other conic section." Cer- 
tainly if Newton had proved that a planet cannot move in a circle, 
(which Hegel says he ought to have done), his system would have 
perplexed astronomers, since there are planets which move in orbits 
hardly distinguishable from circles, and the variation of the extre- 
mity from planet to planet shows that there is nothing to prevent 
the excentricity vanishing and the orbit becoming a circle. 

"But," says Hegel again, (e) "the conditions which make the 
path to be an ellipse rather than any other conic section, are empi- 
rical and extraneous ; — the supposed casual strength of the im- 
pulsion originally received." Certainly the circumstances which 
determine the amount of excentricity of a planet's orbit are de- 
rived from experience, or rather, observation. It is not a part of 
Newton's system to determine a priori what the excentricity of a 
planet's orbit must be. A system that professes to do this will 
undoubtedly be one very diiferent from his. And as our knowledge 
of the excentricity is derived from observation, it is, in that sense, 
empirical and casual. The strength of the original impulsion is a 



5IO APPENDIX H. 

hypothetical and impartial way of expressing this result of observa- 
tion. And as we see no reason why the excentrieity should be of 
any certain magnitude, we see none why the fraction which ex- 
presses the excentrieity should not become as large as unity, that 
is, why the orbit should not become a parabola; and accordingly, 
some of the bodies which revolve about the same appear to move 
in orbits of this form : so little is the motion in an ellipse, as Hegel 
says, (/) "the only thing to be proved." 

But Hegel himself has offered proof of Kepler's laws, to which, 
considering his objections to Newton's proofs, we cannot help 
turning with some curiosity. 

And first, let us look at the proof of the Proposition which we 
have been considering, that the path of a planet is necessarily an 
ellipse. I will translate Hegel's language as well as I can; but 
without answering for the correctness of my translation, since it 
does not appear to me to conform to the first condition of transla- 
tion, of being intelligible. The translation however, such as it 
is, may help us to form some opinion of the validity and value of 
Hegel's proofs as compared with Newton's, (r) 

"For absolutely uniform motion, the circle is the only path.... 
The circle is the line returning into itself in which all the radii 
are equal; there is, for it, only one determining quantity, the 
radius. 

"But in free motion, the determination according to space and 
to time come into view with differences. There must be a dif- 
ference in the spatial aspect in itself, and therefore the form re- 
quires two determining quantities. Hence the form of the path 
returning into itself is an ellipse." 

Now even if we could regard this as reasoning, the conclusion 
does not in the smallest degree follow. A curve returning into 
itself and determined by two quantities, may have innumerable 
forms besides the ellipse; for instance, any oval form whatever* 
besides that of the conic section. 

But why must the curve be a curve returning into itself? Hegel 
has professed to prove this previously (m) from "the determination 
of particularity and individuality of the bodies in general, so that 
they have partly a center in themselves, and partly at the same 
time their center in another." Without seeking to find any precise 
meaning in this, we may ask whether it proves the impossibility of 
the orbits with moveable apses, (which do not return into them- 
selves,) such as the planets (affected by perturbations) really do 
describe, and such as we know that bodies must describe in all 
cases, except when the force varies exactly as the square of the 



CRITICISM OF NEWTON S PRINCIPIA. 5 II 

distance ? It appears to do so : and it proyes this impossibility of 
known facts at least as much as it proves anything. 

Let us now look at Hegel's proof of Kepler's second law, that 
the elliptical sectors swept by the radius vector are proportional to 
the time. It is this : (s), 

" In the circle, the arc or angle which is included by the two 
radii is independent of them. But in the motion [of a planet] as 
determined by the conception, the distance from the center and the 
arc run over in a certain time must be compounded in one deter- 
mination, and must make out a whole. This whole is the sector, 
a space of two dimensions. And hence the arc is essentially a 
Function of the radius vector; and the former (the arc) being 
unequal, brings with it the inequality of the radii." 

As was said in the former case, if we could regard this as reason- 
ing, it would not prove the conclusion, but only, that the arc is 
some function or other of the radii. 

Hegel indeed offers (t) a reason why there must be an arc in- 
volved. This arises, he says, from "the determinateness [of the 
nature of motion], at one while as time in the root, at another 
while as space in the square. But here the quadratic character of 
the space is, by the returning of the line of motion into itself, 
limited to a sector." 

Probably my readers have had a sufficient specimen of HegePs 
mode of dealing with these matters. I will however add his proof 
of Kepler's third law, that the cubes of the distances are as the 
squares of the times. 

Hegel's proof in this case (u) has a reference to a previous doc- 
trine concerning falling bodies, in which time and space have, he 
says, a relation to each other as root and square. Falling bodies 
however are the case of only half-free motion, and the determina- 
tion is incomplete. 

" But in the case of absolute motion, the domain of free masses, 
the determination attains its totality. The time as the root is a 
mere empirical magnitude : but as a component of the developed 
Totality, it is a Totality in itself: it produces itself, and therein has 
a reference to itself. And in this process, Time, being itself the 
dimensionless element, only comes to a formal identity with itself 
and reaches the square : Space, on the other hand, as a positive 
external relation, comes to the full dimensions of the conception of 
space, that is, the cube. The Realization of the two conceptions 
(space and time) preserves their original difference. This is the 
third Keplerian law, the relation of the Cubes of the distances to 
the squares of the times." 



512 



APPENDIX H. 



i 



" And this," he adds, (v) with remarkable complacency, " repre- 
sents simply and immediately the reason of the thing: — while on 
the contrary, the Newtonian Formula, by means of which the Law 
is changed into a Law for the Force of Gravity, shows the distortion 
and inversion of Reflexion, which stops half-way." 

I am not able to assign any precise meaning to the Reflexion, 
which is here used as a term of condemnation, applicable especially 
to the Newtonian doctrine. It is repeatedly applied in the same 
manner by Hegel. Thus he says, (g) " that what Kepler expresses 
in a simple and sublime manner in the form of Laws of the Celes- 
tial Motions, Newton has metamorphosed into the Reflexion-Form 
of the Force of Gravitation." 

Though Hegel thus denies Newton all merit with regard to the 
explanation of Kepler's laws by means of the gravitation of the 
planets to the sun, he allows that to the Keplerian Laws Newton 
added the Principle of Perturbations {h). This Principle he accepts 
to a certain extent, transforming the expression of it after his 
peculiar fashion. "It lies," he says, {I) "in this: that matter in 
general assigns a center for itself : the collective bodies of the sys- 
tem recognise a reference to their sun, and all the individual bodies, 
according to the relative positions into which they are brought by 
their motions, form a momentary relation of their gravity towards 
each other." 

This must appear to us a very loose and insufficient way of 
stating the Principle of Perturbations, but loose as it is, it recognises 
that the Perturbations depend upon the gravity of the planets one 
to another, and to the sun. And if the Perturbations depend upon 
these forces, one can hardly suppose that any one who allows this 
will deny that the primary undisturbed motions depend upon these 
forces, and must be explained by means of them ; yet this is what 
Hegel denies. 

It is evident, on looking at Hegel's mode of reasoning on such 
subjects, that his views approach towards those of Aristotle and the 
Aristotelians; according to which motions were divided into na- 
tural and unnatural ; — the celestial motions were circular and uni- 
form in their nature; — and the like. Perhaps it may be worth 
while to show how completely Hegel adheres to these ancient 
views, by an extract from the additions to the Articles on Celes- 
tial Motions, made in the last edition of the Encyclopadia. He 
says (w), 

*' The motion of the heavenly bodies is not a being pulled this 
way and that, as is imagined (by the Newtonians). They go along, 
as the ancients said, like blessed gods. The celestial conformity is 



CRITICISM OP Newton's principia. 513 

not such a one as has the principle of rest or motion external to 
itself. It is not right to say because a stone is inert, and the whole 
earth consists of stones, and the other heavenly bodies are of the 
same nature as the earth, therefore the heavenly bodies are inert. 
This conclusion makes the properties of the whole the same as 
those of the part. Impulse, Pressure, Resistance, Friction, Pulling, 
and the like, are valid only for other than celestial matter." 

There can be no doubt that this is a very different doctrine from 
that of Newton. 

I will only add to these specimens of Hegel's physics, a specimen 
of the logic by which he refutes the Newtonian argument which 
has just been adduced ; namely, that the celestial bodies are matter, 
and that matter, as we see in terrestrial matter, is inert. He 
says (ar), 

*' Doubtless both are matter, as a good thought and a bad thought 
are both thoughts ; but the bad one is not therefore good, because 
it is a thought." 



APPENDIX TO THE MEMOIR ON HEGEL'S CRITICISM 
OF NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA. 



Hegel. Encydopcedia (2nd Ed. 1827), Part xi. p. 250. 

C. Absolute Mechanics. 

§ 269. 
r\ RAVITATION is the true and determinate conception of ma- 
^ terial Corporeity, which (Conception) is realized to the Idea (zur 
Idee). General Corporeity is separable essentially into particular 
Bodies, and connects itself with the Element of Individuality or 
subjectivity, as apparent (phenomenal) presence in the Motion, 
which by this means is immediately a system of several Bodies. 

Universal gravitation must, as to itself, be recognised as a pro- 
found thought, although it was principally as apprehended in the 
sphere of Reflexion that it eminently attracted notice and confi- 
dence on account of the quantitative determinations therewith con- 
nected, and was supposed to find its confirmation in Experiments 
(Erfahrung) pursued from the Solar System down to the phenomena 

L L 



514 APPENDIX H. . 

of Capillary Tubes. — But Gravitation contradicts immediately the 
Law of Inertia, for in virtue of it (Gravitation) matter tends out of 
itself to the other (matter). — In the Conception of Weight, there 
are, as has been shown, involved the two elements — Self-existence, 
and Continuity, which takes away self-existence. These elements 
of the Conception, however, experience a fate, as particular forces, 
corresponding to Attractive and Repulsive Force, and are thereby 
apprehended in nearer determination, as Centripetal and Centri- 
fugal Force, which (Forces) like weight, act upon Bodies^ independ- 
ent of each other, and are supposed to come in contact accidentally 
in a third thing. Body. By this means, what there is of profound 
in the thought of universal weight is again reduced to nothing; 
and Conception and Reason cannot make their way into the doc- 
trine of absolute motion, so long as the so highly-prized discoveries 
of Forces are dominant there. In the conclusion which contains the 
Idea of "Weight, namely, [contains this Idea] as the Conception 
which, in the case of motion, enters into external Reality through 
the particularity of the Bodies, and at the same time into this 
[Reality] and into their Ideality and self-regarding Reflexion, 
(Reflexion-in-sich), the rational identity and inseparability of the 
elements is involved, which at other times are represented as inde- 
pendent. Motion itself, as such, has only its meaning and existence 
in a system of several bodies, and those, such as stand in relation to 
each other according to different determinations, 

§ 270. 

As to what concerns bodies in which the conception of gravity 
(weight) is realized free by itself, we say that they have for the 
determinations of their different nature the elements (momente) of 
their conception. One [conception of this kind] is the universal 
center of the abstract reference [of a body] to itself. Opposite to 
this [conception] stands the immediate, extrinsic, centerless In~ 
dividuality, appearing as Corporeity similarly independent. Those 
[Bodies] however which are particular, which stand in the determi- 
nation of extrinsic, and at the same time of intrinsic relation, are 
centers for themselves, and [also] have a reference to the first as to 
their essential unity. 

The Planetary Bodies, as the immediately concrete, are 
in their existence the most complete. Men are accustomed 
to take the Sun as the most excellent, inasmuch as the under- 
standing prefers the abstract to the concrete, and in like 
manner the fixed stars are esteemed higher than the Bodies 



EXTRACTS FROM HEGEL. 515 

of the Solar System. Centerless Corporeity, as belonging to 
externality, naturally separates itself into the opposition of the 
lunar and the cometary Body. The laws of absolutely free 
motion, as is well known, were discovered by Kepler; — a dis- 
covery of immortal fame. Kepler has proved these laws in 
this sense, that for the empirical data he found their general 
expression. Since then, it has become a common way of 

(a) speaking to say that Newton first found out the proof of these 
Laws. It has rare]y happened that fame has been more un- 
justly transferred from the first discoverer to another person . 
On this subject I make the following remarks. 

1. That it is allowed by Mathematicians that the New- 
tonian Formulae may be derived from the Keplerian Laws. 

(b) The completely immediate derivation is this : In the third 

(c) Keplerian Law, -— is the constant quantity. This being put 

A A? A 

as — ^„- , and calling, with Newton, — universal Gravita- 

tion, his expression of the effect of gravity in the reciprocal 
x'atio of the square of the distances is obvious. 

{d) 2. That the Newtonian proof of the Proposition that a body 
subjected to the Law of Gravitation moves about the central 
body in an Ellipse, gives a Conic Section generally, while the 
main Proposition which ought to be proved is that the fall 
of such a Body is not a Circle or any other Conic Section, 
but an Ellipse only. Moreover, there are objections which 
may be made against this proof in itself {Princ. Math. 1. 1. 
Sect. ir. Prop. 1) ; and although it is the foundation of the 

(e) Newtonian Theory, analysis has no longer any need of it. 
The conditions which in the sequel make the path of the 
Body to a determinate Conic Section, are referred to an em- 
pirical circumstance, namely, a particular position of the Body 
at a determined moment of time, and the casual strength of an 

(f) {mpuZ^ton which it is supposed to have received originally; so 
that the circumstance which makes the Curve be an Ellipse, 
which alone ought to be the thing proved, is extraneous to the 
Formula. 

3. That the Newtonian Law of the so-called Force of Gra- 
vitation is in like manner only proved from experience by 
Induction. 
(g) The sum of the difference is this, that what Kepler ex- 
pressed in a simple and sublime manner in the F-orm of Laws 

LL2 



5l6 APPENDIX H. 

of the Celestial Motions, Newton has metamorphosed into the 
Reflection- Form of the Force of Gravitation. If the New- 
tonian Form has not only its convenience but its necessity 
in reference to the analytical method, this is only a diflference 

Qi) of the mathematical formulae ; Analysis has long been able to 
derive the Newtonian expression, and the Propositions there- 
with connected, out of the Form of the Keplerian Laws; (on 
this subject I refer to the elegant exposition in Francceur'' s 

(i) Traite Flem. de Mecanique, Liv. ii. Ch. xi. n. 4.) — The old 
method of so-called proof is conspicuous as offering to us a 
tangled web, formed of the Lines of the mere geometrical 
construction, to which a physical meaning of independent 
Forces is given; and of empty Reflexion -determinations of 
the already mentioned Accelerating Force and Vis Inerticp, 
and especially of the relation of the so-called gravitation itself 
to the centripetal force and centrifugal force, and so on. 

The remarks which are here made would undoubtedly have 
need of a further explication to show how well founded they 
are: in a Compendium, propositions of this kind which do not 
agree with that which is assumed, can only have the shape of 
assertions. Indeed, since they contradict such high authori- 
ties, they must appear as something worse, as presumptuous 
assertions. I will not, on this subject, support myself by say- 
ing, by the bye, that an interest in these subjects has occupied 
me for 25 years; but it is more precisely to the purpose to 
remark, that the distinctions and determinations which Ma- 
thematical Analysis introduces, and the course which it must 
take according to its method, is altogether different from that 
which a physical reality must have. The Presuppositions, the 
Course, and the Results, which the Analysis necessarily has 
and gives, remain quite extraneous to the considerations which 
determine the physical value and the signification of those de- 
terminations and of that course. To this it is that attention 
should be directed. "We have to do with a consciousness 
relative to the deluging of physical Mechanics with an incon- 
ceivable (unsaglichen) Metaphysic, which — contrary to ex- 
perience and conception — has those mathematical determina- 
tions alone for its source. 

It is recognized that what Newton — besides the foundation 
of the analytical treatment, the development of which, by the 
bye, has of itself rendered superfluous, or indeed rejected 
much which belonged to Newton's essential Principles and 
glory — has added to the Keplerian Laws is the Principle of 



EXTRACTS FROM HEGEL. 517 

Perturbations, — a Principle whose importance we may here 
accept thus far (hier in sofern anzufuhren ist); namely, so 

(A-) far as it rests upon the Proposition that the so-called attrac- 
tion is an operation of all the individual parts of bodies, as 

( I ) being material. It lies in this, that matter in general assigns 
a center for itself (sich das centrum setzt), and the figure of 
the body is an element in the determination of its place ; that 
collective bodies of the system recognize a reference to their 
Sun (sich ihre Sonne setzen), but also the individual bodies 
themselves, according to the relative position with regard to 
each other into which they come by their general motion, 
form a momentary relation of their gravity (schwere) towards 
each other, and are related to each other not only in abstract 
spatial relations, but at the same time assign to themselves a 
joint center, which however is again resolved [into the general 
center] in the universal system. 

As to what concerns the features of the path, to show how 
the fundamental determinations of Free Motion are connected 
with the Conception, cannot here be undertaken in a satisfac- 
tory and detailed manner, and must therefore be left to its fate. 
The proof from reason of the quantitative determinations of 
free motion can only rest upon the determinations of Concep- 
tions of space and time, the elements whose relation (intrinsic 
not extrinsic) motion is. 

(m) That, in the first place, the motion in general is a motion 
returning into itself, is founded on the determination of parti- 
cularity and individuality of the bodies in general ( § 269 ) , so that 
partly they have a center in themselves, and partly at the same 
time their center in another. These are the determinations of 
Conceptions which form the basis of the false representatives 

(n) of Centripetal Force and Centrifugal Force, as if each of 
these were self- existing, extraneous to the other, and inde- 
pendent of it ; and as if they only came in contact in their 
operations and consequently externally. They are, as has 
already been mentioned, the Lines which must be drawn for 
the mathematical determinations, transformed into physical 
realities. 

Further, this motion is uniformly accelerated, (and— as 
returning into itself— in turn uniformly retarded). In motion 
Sisfree, Time and Space enter as different things which are to 
make themselves effective in the determination of the motion 

(o) (§ 266, note). In the so-called Explanation of the uniformly 
accelerated and retarded motion, by means of the alternate 



5l8 APPENDIX H. 

decrease and increase of the magnitude of the Centripetal 
Force and Centrifugal Force, the confusion -which the assump- 
tion of such independent Forces produces is at its greatest 
(p) height. According to this explanation, in the motion of a 
Planet from the Aphelion to the Perihelion, the centrifugal 
is less than the centripetal force, and on the contrary, in the 
Perihelion itself, the centrifugal force is supposed to become 
greater than the centripetal. For the motion from the Peri- 
helion to the Aphelion, this representation makes the forces 
pass into the opposite relation in the same manner. It is ap- 
parent that such a sudden conversion of the preponderance 
which a force has obtained over another, into an inferiority to 
the other, cannot be anything taken out of the nature of 
Forces. On the contrary it must be concluded, that a pre- 
ponderance which one Force has obtained over another must 
not only be preserved, but must go onwards to the complete 
annihilation of the other Force, and the motion must either, 
by the Preponderance of the Centripetal Force, proceed till it 
ends in rest, that is, in the Collision of the Planet with the 
Central Body, or till by the Preponderance of the Centrifugal 
(q) Force it ends in a straight line. But now, if in place of the 
suddenness of the conversion, we suppose a gradual increase 
of the Force in question, then, since rather the other Force 
ought to be assumed as increasing, we lose the opposition 
which is assumed for the sake of the explanation ; and, if the 
increase of the one is assumed to be different from that of the 
other, (which is the case in some representations,) then there 
is found at the mean distance between the apsides a point in 
which the Forces are in equilibria. And the transition of the 
Forces out of Equilibrium is a thing just as little without any 
sufficient reason as the aforesaid suddenness of inversion. 
And in the whole of this kind of explanation, we see that the 
mode of remedying a bad mode of dealing with a subject leads 
to newer and greater confusion. — A similar confusion makes 
, its appearance in the explanation of the phsenomenon that 

the pendulum oscillates more slowly at the equator. This 
phsenomenon is ascribed to the Centrifugal Force, which it is 
asserted must then be greater ; but it is easy to see that we 
may just as well ascribe it to the augmented gravity, inasmuch 
as that holds the pendulum more strongly to the perpendi- 
cular line of rest. 



EXTRACTS FROM HEGEL. 519 

§ 240. 

(r) And now first, as to what concerns the Form of the Path, 
the Circle only can be conceived as the path of an absolutely 
uniform motion. Conceivable, as people express it, no doubt 
it is, that an increasing and diminishing motion should take 
place in a circle. But this conceivableness or possibility means 
only an abstract capability of being represented, which leaves 
out of sight that Determinate Thing on which the question 
turns. 

The Circle is the line returning into itself in which all the 
radii are equal, that is, it is completely determined by means of 
the radius. There is only one Determination, and that is the 
whole Determination. 

But in free motion, in which the Determinations according 
to space and according to time come into view with Differ- 
ences, in a qualitative relation to each other, this Relation 
appears in the spatial aspect as a Difference thereof in itself, 
which therefore requires two Determinations, Hereby the 
Form of the path returning into itself is essentially an 
Ellipse, 

{s) The abstract Determinateness which produces the circle 
appears also in this way, that the arc or angle which is in- 
cluded by two Radii is independent of them, a magnitude with 
regard to them completely empirical. But since in the motion 
as determined by the Conception, the distance from the 
center, and the arc which is run over in a certain time, must 
be comprehended in one determinateness, \and'\ make out a 
whole, this is the sector, a space-determination of two dimen- 
sions: in this way, the arc is essentially a Function of the 
Radius Vector ; and the former (the arc) being unequal, brings 
with it the inequality of the Radii. That the determination 
with regard to the space by means of the time appears as a 
Determination of two Dimensions, — as a Superficies-Determi- 

(t) nation, — agrees with what was said before (§ 266) respecting 
Falling Bodies, with regard to the exposition of the same 
Determinateness, at one while as Time in the root, at another 
while as Space in the Square. Here, however, the Quadratic 
character of the space is, by the returning of the Line of 
motion into itself, limited to a Sector. These are, as may be 
seen, the general principles on which the Keplerian Law, that 
in equal times equal sectors are cut off, rests. 

This Law becomes, as is clear, only the relation of the arc 
to the Radius Vector, and the Time enters there as the abstract 



520 APPENDIX H. 

Unity, in which the different Sectors are compared, because 
as Unity it is the Determining Element. But the further 
relation is that of the Time, not as Unity, but as a Quantity 
in general, — as the time of Revolution — to the magnitude of 
the Path, or, what is the same thing, the distance from the 
center. As Root and Square, we saw that Time and Space 
had a relation to each other, in the case of Falling Bodies, the 
case of half-free motion — because that {motion] is determined 
on one side by the conception, on the other by external 
[conditions]. But in the case of absolute motion — the domain 

(u) oi free masses — the determination attains its Totality. The 
Time as the Root is a mere empirical magnitude ; but as a 
component (moment) of the developed Totality, it is a Total- 
ity in itself,— it produces itself, and therein has a reference to 
itself; as the Dimensionless Element in itself, it only comes 
to a formal identity with itself, the Square ; Space, on the 
other hand, as the positive Distribution (aussereinander) 
[comes] to the Dimension of the Conception, the Cube. Their 

(v) Realization preserves their original difference. This is the 
third Keplerian Law, the relation of the Cubes of the Dis- 
tances to the Squares of the Times ; — a Law which is so great 
on this account, that it represents so simply and immediately 
Reason as belonging to the thing : while on the contrary the 
Newtonian Formula, by means of which the Law is changed 
into a Law for the Force of Gravity, shows the Distortion, 
Perversion and Inversion of Reflexion which stops half-way. 

Additions to new Edition. § 269. 

The center has no sense without the circumference, nor the 
circumference without the center. This makes all physical 
hypotheses vanish which sometimes proceed from the center, 
sometimes from the particular bodies, and sometimes assign 
this, sometimes that, as the original [cause of motion]... It is 
silly (lappisch) to suppose that the centrifugal force, as a 
tendency to fly off in a Tangent, has been produced by a 
lateral projection, a projectile force, an impulse which they 
have retained ever since they set out on their journey (von 
Haus aus). Such casualty of the motion produced by ex- 
ternal causes belongs to inert matter ; as when a stone fasten- 
ed to a thread which is thrown transversely tries to fly 
from the thread. "We are not to talk in this way of Forces. 
If we will speak of Force, there is one Force, whose elements 



EXTRACTS FROM HEGEL. 52 1 

do not draw bodies to different sides as if they were two 
(w) Forces. The motion of the heavenly bodies is not a being 
pulled this way or that, such as is thus imagined ; it is free 
motion : they go along, as the ancients said, as blessed Gods 
(sie gehen als selige Gotter einher). The celestial corporeity 
is not such a one as has the principle of rest or motion ex- 
ternal to itself. Because stone is inert, and all the earth 
consists of stones, and the other heavenly bodies are of the 
same nature, — is a conclusion which makes the properties of 
the whole the same as those of the part. Impulse, Pressure, 
Resistance, Friction, Pulling, and the like, are valid only for 
(x) an existence of matter other than the celestial. Doubtless 
that which is common to the two is matter, as a good thought 
and a bad thought are both thoughts ; but the bad one is not 
therefore good, because it is a thought. 



Appendix K. 

DEMONSTEATION THAT ALL MATTER IS 
HEAVY. 

{Gam. Phil. Soc. Feb. 22, 184L) 



T^HE discussion of the nature of the grounds and proofs of the 
most general propositions which the physical sciences include, 
belongs rather to Metaphysics than to that course of experimental 
and mathematical investigation by which the sciences are formed. 
But such discussions seem by no means unfitted to occupy the at- 
tention of the cultivators of physical science. The ideal, as well as 
the experimental side of our knowledge must be carefully studied 
and scrutinized, in order that its true import may be seen ; and 
this province of human speculation has been perhaps of late un- 
justly depreciated and neglected by men of science. Yet it can be 
prosecuted in the most advantageous manner by them only : for no 
one can speculate securely and rightly respecting the nature and 
proofs of the truths of science without a steady possession of some 
large and solid portions of such truths. A man must be a mathe- 
matician, a mechanical philosopher, a natural historian, in order 
that he may philosophize well concerning mathematics, and me- 
chanics, and natural history; and the mere metaphysician who 
without such preparation and fitness sets himself to determine 
the grounds of mathematical or mechanical truths, or the prin- 
ciples of classification, will be liable to be led into error at every 
step. He must speculate by means of general terms, which he will 
not be able to use as instruments of discovering and conveying 
philosophical truth, because he cannot, in his own mind, habitually 
and familiarly, embody their import in special examples. 

Acting upon such views, I have already laid before the Philoso- 
phical Society of Cambridge essays on such subjects as I here refer 
to; especially a memoir " On the Nature of the Truth of the Laws 
of Motion," which was printed by the Society in its Transactions. 



ALL MATTER IS HEAVY. 523 

This memoir appears to have excited in other places, notice of such 
a kind as to show that the minds of many speculative persons are 
ready for and inclined towards the discussion of such questions. 
I am therefore the more willing to bring under consideration 
another subject of a kind closely related to the one just men- 
tioned. 

The general questions which all such discussions suggest, are 
(in the existing phase of English philosophy) whether certain pro- 
posed scientific truths, (as the laws of motion,) be necessary truths; 
and if they are necessary, (which I have attempted to show that in 
a certain sense they are,) on what ground their necessity rests. 
These questions may be discussed in a general form, as I have 
elsewhere attempted to show. But it may be instructive also to 
follow the general arguments into the form which they assume in 
special cases ; and to exhibit, in a distinct shape, the incongruities 
into which the opposite false doctrine leads us, when applied to parti- 
cular examples. This accordingly is what I propose to do in the 
present memoir, with regard to the proposition stated at the head 
of this paper, namely, that all matter is heavy. 

At first sight it may appear a doctrine altogether untenable to 
assert that this proposition is a necessary truth : for, it may be 
urged, we have no difficulty in conceiving matter which is not 
heavy; so that matter without weight is a conception not incon- 
sistent with itself; which it must be if the reverse were a necessary 
truth. It may be added, that the possibility of conceiving matter 
without weight was shown in the controversy which ended in the 
downfall of the phlogiston theory of chemical composition ; for 
some of the reasoners on this subject asserted phlogiston to be a 
body with positive levity instead of gravity, which hypothesis, how- 
ever false, shows that such a supposition is possible. Again, it 
may be said thQi weight and inertia are two separate properties 
of matter: that mathematicians measure the quantity of matter 
by the inertia, and that we learn by experiment only that the 
weight is proportional to the inertia; Newton's experiments with 
pendulums of different materials having been made with this very 
object. 

I proceed to reply to these arguments. And first, as to the 
possibility of conceiving matter without weight, and the ai'gument 
thence deduced, that the universal gravity of matter is not a neces- 
sary truth, I remark, that it is indeed just, to say that we cannot 
even distinctly conceive the contrary of a necessary truth to be 
true ; but that this impossibility can be asserted only of those per- 
fectly distinct conceptions which result from a complete develop- 



524 APPENDIX K. 

ment of the fundamental idea and its consequences. Till we reach 
this stage of development, the obscurity and indistinctness may 
prevent our perceiving absolute contradictions, though they exist. 
Vl''e have abundant store of examples of this, even in geometry and 
arithmetic ; where the truths are universally allowed to be neces- 
sary, and where the relations which are impossible, are also incon- 
ceivable, that is, not conceivable distinctly. Such relations, though 
not distinctly conceivable, still often appear conceivable and pos- 
sible, owing to the indistinctness of our ideas. Who, at the first 
outset of his geometrical studies, sees any impossibility in suppos- 
ing the side and the diagonal of a square to have a common mea- 
sure ? Yet they can be rigorously proved to be incommensurable, 
and therefore the attempt distinctly to conceive a common measure 
of them must fail. The attempts at the geometrical duplication of 
the cube, and the supposed solutions, (as that of Hobbes,) have 
involved absolute contradictions; yet this has not prevented their 
being long and obstinately entertained by men, even of minds acute 
and clear in other respects. And the same might be shewn to 
be the case in arithmetic. It is plain, therefore, that we cannot, 
from the supposed possibility of conceiving matter without weight, 
infer that the contrary may not be a necessary truth. 

Our power of judging, from the compatibility or incompatibility 
of our conceptions, whether certain propositions respecting the 
relations of ideas are true or not, must depend entirely, as I have 
said, upon the degree of development which such ideas have under- 
gone in our minds. Some of the relations of our conceptions on 
any subject are evident upon the first steady contemplation of the 
fundamental idea by a sound mind : these are the axioms of the 
subject. Other propositions may be deduced from the axioms by 
strict logical reasoning. These propositions are no less necessary 
than the axioms, though to common minds their evidence is very 
different. Yet as we become familiar with the steps by which these 
ulterior truths are deduced from the axioms, their truth also be- 
comes evident, and the contrary becomes inconceivable. "When a 
person has familiarized himself with the first twenty-six proposi- 
tions of Euclid, and not till then, it becomes evident to him, that 
parallelograms on the same base and between the same parallels 
are equal ; and he cannot even conceive the contrary. When he 
has a little further cultivated his geometrical powers, the equality 
of the square on the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle to the 
squares on the sides, becomes also evident ; the steps by which it is 
demonstrated being so familiar to the mind as to be apprehended 
without a conscious act. And thus, the contrary of a necessary 



ALL MATTER IS HEAVY. 525 

truth cannot be distinctly conceived ; but the incapacity of forming 
such a conception is a condition which depends upon cultivation, 
being intimately connected with the power of rapidly and clearly 
perceiving the connection of the necessary truth under consideration 
with the elementary principles on which it depends. And thus, 
again, it may be that there is an absolute impossibility of conceiving 
matter without weight ; but then, this impossibility may not be 
apparent, till we have traced our fundamental conceptions of matter 
into some of their consequences. 

The question then occurs, whether we can, by any steps of rea- 
soning, point out an inconsistency in the conception of matter 
without weight. This I conceive we may do, and this I shall 
attempt to show. 

The general mode of stating the argument is this : — the quantity 
of matter is measured by those sensible properties of matter which 
undergo quantitative addition, subtraction and division, as the mat- 
ter is added, subtracted and divided. The quantity of matter can- 
not be known in any other way. But this mode of measuring the 
quantity of matter, in order to be true at all, must be universally 
true. If it were only partially true, the limits within which it is 
to be applied would be arbitrary; and therefore the whole proce- 
dure would be arbitrary, and, as a method of obtaining philosophi- 
cal truth, altogether futile. 

We may unfold this argument further. Let the contrary be sup- 
posed, of that which we assert to be true : namely, let it be sup- 
posed that while all other kinds of matter are heavy (and of course 
heavy in proportion to the quantity of matter), there is one kind of 
matter which is absolutely destitute of weight; as, for instance, 
phlogiston, or any other element. Then where this weightless 
element (as we may term it) is mixed with weighty elements, we 
shall have a compound, in which the weight is no longer propor- 
tional to the quantity of matter. If, for example, 2 measures of 
heavy matter unite with one measure of phlogiston, the weight is 
as 2, and the quantity of matter as 3. In all such cases, therefore, 
the weight ceases to be the measure of the quantity of matter. 
And as the proportion of the weighty and the weightless matter 
may vary in innumerable degrees in such compounds, the weight 
affords no criterion at all of the quantity of matter in them. And 
the smallest admixture of the weightless element is sufficient to 
prevent the weight from being taken as the measure of the quan- 
tity of matter. 

But on this hypothesis, how are we to distinguish such com- 
pounds from bodies consisting purely of heavy matter ? How are 



526 APPENDIX K. 

we to satisfy ourselves that there is not, in every body, some admix- 
ture, small or great, of the weightless element ? If we call this 
element phlogiston, how shall we know that the bodies with which 
we have to do are, any of them, absolutely free from phlogiston ? 

We cannot refer to the weight for any such assurance; for by 
supposition the presence and absence of phlogiston makes no dif- 
ference in the weight. Nor can any other properties secure us at 
least from a very small admixture ; for to assert that a mixture of 
1 in 100 or 1 in 10 of phlogiston would always manifest itself in 
the properties of the body, must be an arbitrary procedure, till we 
have proved this assertion by experiment : and we cannot do this 
till we have learnt some mode of measuring the quantities of matter 
in bodies and parts of bodies; which is exactly what we question 
the possibility of, in the present hypothesis. 

Thus, if we assume the existence of an element, pJilogiston, 
devoid of weight, we cannot be sure that every body does not con- 
tain some portion of this element ; while we see that if there be an 
admixture of such an element, the weight is no longer any criterion 
of the quantity of matter. And thus we have proved, that if there 
be any kind of matter which is not heavy, the weight can no longer 
avail us, in any case or to any extent, as a measure of the quantity 
of matter. 

I may remark, that the same conclusion is easily extended to the 
case in which phlogiston is supposed to have absolute levity ; for in 
that case, a certain mixture of phlogiston and of heavy matter 
would have no weight, and might be substituted for phlogiston in 
the preceding reasoning. 

I may remark, also, that the same conclusion would follow by 
the same reasoning, if any kind of matter, instead of being void of 
weight, were heavy, indeed, but not so heavy, in proportion to its 
quantity of matter, as other kinds. 

On all these hypotheses there would be no possibility of measur- 
ing quantity of matter by weight at all, in any case, or to any extent. 

But it may be urged, that we have not yet reduced the hypothe- 
sis of matter without weight to a contradiction; for that mathe- 
maticians measure quantity of matter, not by weight, but by the 
other property, of which we have spoken, inertia. 

To this I reply, that, practically speaking, quantity of matter is 
always measured by weight, both by mechanicians and chemists : 
and as we have proved that this procedure is utterly insecure in all 
cases, on the hypothesis of weightless matter, the practice rests 
upon a conviction that the hypothesis is false. And yet the prac- 
tice is universal. Every experimenter measures quantity of matter 



ALL MATTER IS HEAVY. 527 

by the balance. No one has ever thought of measuring quantity of 
matter by its inertia practically : no one has constructed a measure 
of quantity of matter in which the matter produces its indications 
of quantity by its motion. "When we have to take into account the 
inertia of a body, we inquire what its weight is, and assume this as 
the measure of the inertia; but we never take the contrary course, 
and ascertain the inertia first in order to determine by that means 
the weight. 

But it may be asked, Is it not then true, and an important 
scientific truth, that the quantity of matter is measured by the 
inertia ? Is it not true, and proved by experiment, that the loeight 
is proportional to the inertia? If this be not the result of Newton's 
experiments mentioned above, what, it may be demanded, do they 
prove ? 

To these questions I reply : It is true that quantity of matter is 
measured by the inertia, for it is true that inertia is as the quantity 
of matter. This truth is indeed one of the laws of motion. That 
weight is proportional to inertia is proved by expei'iment, as far as 
the laws of motion are so proved : and Newton's experiments prove 
one of the laws of motion, so far as any experiments can prove 
them, or are needed to prove them. 

That inertia is proportional to weight, is a law equivalent to that 
law which asserts, that when pressure produces motion in a given 
body, the velocity produced in a given time is as the pressure. For 
if the velocity be as the pressure, when the body is given, the 
velocity will be constant if the inertia also be as the pressure. For 
the inertia is understood to be that property of bodies to which, 
ceteris paribus^ the velocity impressed is inuerse/j/ proportional. One 
body has twice as much inertia as another, if, when the same force 
acts upon it for the same time, it acquires but half the velocity. 
This is the fundamental conception of inertia. 

In Newton's pendulum experiments, the pressure producing mo- 
tion was a certain resolved part of the weight, and was proportional 
to the weight. It appeared by the experiments, that whatever were 
the material of which the pendulum was formed, the rate of oscil- 
lation was the same; that is, the velocity acquired was the same. 
Hence the inertia of the different bodies must have been in each 
case as the weight : and thus this assertion is true of all different 
kinds of bodies. 

Thus it appears that the assertion, that inertia is universally 
proportional to weight, is equivalent to the law of motion, that the 
velocity is as the pressure. The conception of inertia (of which, 
as we have said, the fundamental conception is, that the velocity 



528 APPENDIX K. 

impressed is inversely proportional to the inertia,) connects the 
two propositions so as to make them identical. 

Hence our argument with regard to the universal gravity of 
matter brings us to the above law of motion, and is proved by 
Newton's experiments in the same sense in which that law of mo- 
tion is so proved. 

Perhaps some persons might conceive that the identity of weight 
and inertia is obvious at once ; for both are merely resistance to 
motion; — inertia, resistance to all motion (or change of motion) — 
•weight, resistance to motion upwards. 

But there is a diiference in these two kinds of resistance to 
motion. Inertia is instantaneous, weight is continuous resistance. 
Any momentary impulse which acts upon a free body overcomes its 
inertia, for it changes its motion; and this change once effected, 
the inertia opposes any return to the former condition, as well as 
any additional change. The inertia is thus overcome by a momen- 
tary force. But the weight can only be overcome by a continuous 
force like itself. If an impulse act in opposition to the weight, it 
may for a moment neutralize or overcome the weight; but if it be 
not continued, the weight resumes its effect, and restores the con- 
dition which existed before the impulse acted. 

But weight not only produces rest, when it is resisted, but mo- 
tion, when it is not resisted. Weight is measured by the reaction 
which would balance it; but when unbalanced, it produces motion, 
and the velocity of this motion increases constantly. Now what 
determines the velocity thus produced in a given time, or its rate of 
increase? What determines it to have one magnitude rather than 
another? To this we must evidently reply, the inertia. When 
weight produces motion, the inertia is the reaction which makes the 
motion determinate. The accumulated motion produced by the 
action of unbalanced weight is as determinate a condition as the 
equilibrium produced by balanced weight. In both cases the con- 
dition of the body acted on is determined by the opposition of the 
action and reaction. 

Hence inertia is the reaction which opposes the weight, when 
unbalanced. But by the conception of action and reaction, (as 
mutually determining and determined,) they are measured by each 
other: and hence the inertia is necessarily proportional to the 
weight. 

But when we have reached this conclusion, the original objection 
may be again urged against it. It may be said, that there must be 
some fallacy in this reasoning, for it proves a state of things to be 
necessary when we can so easily conceive a contrary state of things. 



ALL MATTER IS HEAVY. 529 

Is it denied, the opponent may ask, that we can readily imagine 
a state of things in which bodies have no weight? Is not the 
uniform tendency of all bodies in the same direction not only not 
necessary, but not even true ? For they do in reality tend, not 
with equal forces in parallel lines, but to a center with unequal 
forces, according to their position : and we can conceive these 
differences of intensity and direction in the force to be greater 
than they really are ; and can with equal ease suppose the force to 
disappear altogether. 

To this I reply, that certainly we may conceive the weight of 
bodies to vary in intensity and direction, and by an additional effort 
of imagination, may conceive the weight to vanish: but that in all 
these suppositions, even in the extreme one, we must suppose the 
rule to be universal. If any bodies have weight, all bodies must 
have weight. If the direction of weight be different in different 
points, this direction must still vary according to the law of con- 
tinuity ; and the same is true of the intensity of the weight. For if 
this were not so, the rest and motion, the velocity and direction, 
the permanence and change of bodies, as to their mechanical con- 
dition, would be arbitrary and incoherent : they would not be sub- 
ject to mechanical ideas; that is, not to ideas at all: and hence 
these conditions of objects would in fact be inconceivable. In 
order that the univei'se may be possible, that is, may fall under the 
conditions of intelligible conceptions, we must be able to conceive a 
body at rest. But the rest of bodies (except in the absolute nega- 
tion of all force) implies the equilibrium of opposite forces. And 
one of these opposite forces must be a general force, as weight, in 
order that the universe may be governed by general conditions. 
And this general force, by the conception of force, may produce 
motion, as well as equilibrium; and this motion again must be 
determined, and determined by general conditions; which cannot 
be, except the communication of motion be regulated by an inertia 
proportional to the weight. 

But it will be asked, Is it then pretended that Newton's experi- 
ment, by which it was intended to prove inertia proportional to 
weight, does really prove nothing but what may be demonstrated a 
priori ? Could we know, without experiment, that all bodies, — 
gold, iron, wood, cork, — have inertia proportional to their weight ? 
And to this we reply, that experiment holds the same place in the 
establishment of this, as of the other fundamental doctrines of 
mechanics. Intercourse with the external world is requisite for 
developing our ideas ; measurement of phenomena is needed to fix 
our conceptions and to render them precise : but the result of our 

MM 



530 APPENDIX K. 

experimental studies is, that we reach a position in which our con- 
victions do not rest upon experiment. We learn by observation 
truths of which we afterwards see the necessity. This is the case 
with the laws of motion, as I have repeatedly endeavoured to show. 
The same will appear to be the case with the proposition, that 
bodies of different kinds have their inertia proportional to their 
weight. 

For bodies of the same kind have their inertia proportional to 
their weight, both quantities being proportional to the quantity of 
matter. And if we compress the same quantity of matter into half 
the space, neither the weight nor the inertia is altered, because 
these depend on the quantity of matter alone. But in this way we 
obtain a body of twice the density ; and in the same manner we 
obtain a body of any other density. Therefore whatever be the 
density, the inertia is proportional to the quantity of matter. But 
the mechanical relations of bodies cannot depend upon any dif- 
ference of kind, except a difference of density. For if we suppose 
any fundamental difference of mechanical nature in the particles or 
component elements of bodies, Ave are led to the same conclusion, 
of arbitrary, and therefore impossible, results, which we deduced 
from this supposition with regard to weight. Therefore all bodies 
of different density, and hence, all bodies whatever, must have their 
inertia proportional to their weight. 

Hence we see, that the propositions, that all bodies are heavy, 
and that inertia is proportional to weight, necessarily follow from 
those fundamental ideas which we unavoidably employ in all attempts 
to reason concerning the mechanical relations of bodies. This con- 
clusion may perhaps appear the more startling to many, because 
they have been accustomed to expect that fundamental ideas and 
their relations should be self-evident at our first contemplation of 
them. This, however, is far from being the case, as I have already 
shown. It is not the firsts but the most complete and developed 
condition of our conceptions which enables us to see what are 
axiomatic truths in each province of human speculation. Our fun- 
damental ideas are necessary conditions of knowledge, universal 
forms of intuition, inherent types of mental development; they 
may even be termed, if any one chooses, results of connate intel- 
lectual tendencies ; but we cannot term them innate ideas, without 
calling up a large array of false opinions. For innate ideas were 
considered as capable of composition, but by no means of simplifica- 
tion: as most perfect in their original condition ; as to be found, if 
any where, in the most uneducated and most uncultivated minds ; 
as the same in all ages, nations, and stages of intellectual culture j 



ALL MATTER IS HEAVY. 53 1 

as capable of being referred to at once, and made the basis of our 
reasonings, without any special acuteness or effort: in all which 
circumstances the Fundamental Ideas of which we have spoken, 
are opposed to Innate Ideas so understood. 

I shall not, however, here prosecute this subject. T will only 
remark, that Fundamental Ideas, as we view them, are not only 
not innate, in any usual or useful sense, but they are not necessarily 
ultimate elements of our knowledge. They are the results of our 
analysis so far as we have yet prosecuted it; but they may them- 
selves subsequently be analysed. It may hereafter appear, that 
what we have treated as different Fundamental Ideas have, in fact, 
a connexion, at some point below the structure which we erect 
upon them. For instance, we treat of the mechanical ideas of force, 
matter, and the like, as distinct from the idea of substance. Yet 
the principle of measuring the quantity of matter by its weight, 
which we have deduced from mechanical ideas, is applied to deter- 
mine the substances which enter into the composition of bodies. 
The idea of substance supplies the axiom, that the whole quantity 
of matter of a compound body is equal to the sum of the quantities 
of matter of its elements. The mechanical ideas of force and matter 
lead us to infer that the quantity both of the whole and its parts 
must be measured by their weights. Substance may, for some pur- 
poses, be described as that to which properties belong ; matter in 
like manner may be described as that which resists force. The 
former involves the Idea of permanent Being ; the latter, the Idea 
of Causation. There may be some elevated point of view from 
which these ideas may be seen to run together. But even if this be 
so, it will by no means affect the validity of reasonings founded 
upon these notions, when duly determined and developed. If we 
once adopt a view of the nature of knowledge which makes neces- 
sary truth possible at all, we need be little embarrassed by finding 
how closely connected different necessary truths are ; and how often, 
in exploring towards their roots, different branches appear to spring 
from the same stem. 



END OF THE APPENDIX. 



MM 2 



PKINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A. 
AT THE UNIVEESITY PRESS. 



^^0"V.^^ 



WORKS BY 

WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D. F.E.S. 

MASTEB OF TEINITT COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 



HISTOEY OF THE INDUCTIYE SCIENCES. 

Third and Cheaper Edition. Three Volumes, Small Oc- 
tavo, 24s. 

HISTOEY OF SCIENTIFIC IDEAS, being the 
First Part of a Third Edition of the ''Philosophy of the 
Inductive Sciences," with Additions. Two Volumes, 145. 

NO YUM OEGANON EENOYATUM; being the 
Second Part of a Third Edition of the "Philosophy of the 
Inductive Sciences." With large Additions. 7s. 

INDICATIONS OF THE CEEATOE: Theological 
Extracts from the "History and the Philosophy of the 
Inductive Sciences." Second Edition. 55. 6d. 

ELEMENTS OF MOEALITY, INCLUDING 
POLITY. Third Edition, with a Supplement. Two 
Volumes, 155. 



LECTUEES ON SYSTEMATIC MOEALITY. 

7«- ^d' 



TForJcs hy William Whewell, D.D. F.R.S. 

LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF MORAL 
PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLAND. 8s. 

OF A LIBERAL EDUCATION IN GENERAL, 

and with Particular Keference to the Studies of the Univei-- 
sity of Cambridge. Parts I. and II., in One Volume, 
7s. 6d. Part III., sewed, 2S. 

ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ENGLISH UNI- 
VERSITY EDUCATION. Second Edition. 5s. 

COLLEGE CHAPEL SERMONS. los. 6d. 

NOTES ON GERMAN CHURCHES. Third Edi- 

tion. 12s. 

THE MECHANICAL EUCLID. Fifth Edition. 55. 
THE MECHANICS OF ENGINEERING, gs. 
THE DOCTRINE OF LIMITS. Octavo, 95. 
CONIC SECTIONS. 2s. 6d. 



EDITED BY DR. WHEWELL. 

BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN 

NATUBE, and a Dissertation on Virtue; with a Preface 
and Syllabus. Third Edition. 3s. 6d. 

BUTLER'S SIX SERMONS ON MORAL SUB- 
JECTS. With Preface and SyEabus. 35. 6d. 



LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND*. 



Published by John W. Parker and Son, West Strand. 



History of England, from the Fall of 

Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Fifth and Sixth 
Volumes, containing the Reigns of Edward the Sixth and 
Mary, By J. Anthony Feoude. In the Press. 

A Second Edition of the First Four Volumes, containing the 
Reign of Henry VIII. il. 14s. 

History of England, during the Keign of 

George the Third. By W. Massey, M.P. Vols. I. and 
II. 12s. each. The Third Volume in the Press. 

History of Civilization in England. By 

Henry Thomas Buckle. The First Volume. Octavo. 
Second Edition. 21s. 

Friends in Council. Second Series. The 

Second Edition. Two Volumes. 145. 

Friends in Council. First Series. New 

Edition. Two Volumes. 9s. 

On Liberty. By John Stuart Mill. The 

Second Edition. 7s. 6c?. 

The Becreations of a Country Parson; 

Essays Parochial, Architectural, ^S^sthetical, Moral, Social, 
and Domestic. Being a Selection from the Contributions of 
A. K. H. B. to ''Eraser's Magazine." 95. 



New Books and New EditionSy 



Major Hodson's Twelve Years of a Soldier s 

Life in India. Edited by his Brother, the Rev. George H. 
HODSON, M.A. Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
Third Edition, with Additions, and a Portrait, los. 6d. 

The Saint's Tragedy. By Charles Kings- 
ley, Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. The Third Edi- 
tion. Foolscap Octavo. 5s. 

On the Classification and Geographical 

Distribution of Mammalia : On the Gorilla, On the Extinc- 
tion and Transmutation of Species. By Richard Owen, 
F.R.S. Octavo. 5s. 

The Odes of Horace. Translated into 

English Verse, with a Life and Notes. By Theodore 
Martin. '/s.6d. 

Arundines Cami. Edited by the Rev. 

Henry Drury, M.A. Canon of Salisbury, Chaplain to the 
House of Commons. The Fifth and Cheaper Edition. 

The New Cratylus. By J. W. Donaldson, 

D.D. Classical Examiner in the University of London. The 
Third Edition, Revised throughout and considerably En- 
larged. lOS. 

Night Lessons from Scripture. Compiled 

by the Author of * Amy Herbert.' . Demy, Red Edges. 3s. 

Paley's Evidences of Christianity. With 

Annotations by the Archbishop of Dublin. Octavo. 9s. 

Paley's Moral Philosophy. "With Annota- 
tions by the Archbishop of Dublin. Octavo. 7s. 

The Good News of God. Sermons by 

Charles Kingsley, Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. 
The Second Edition. 6s. 



hy John W. Parher and Son, West Strand. 5 



Sermons on the Atonement and other Sub- 
jects, preached before the University of Cambridge. By 
E. Harold Browne, M.A. Norrisian Professor of Divi- 
nity in the University ; Canon of Exeter. Octavo. 5s. 

An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles, 

Historical and Doctrinal. By Professor Harold Browne. 
Fourth Edition. Octavo, i6s. 

Critical and Grammatical Commentary on 

St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. By Charles J. Elli- 
COTT, B.D. Professor of Divinity, King's College, London. 
The Second Edition, Enlarged. 8s. 6d. 

Lately Published : 
I. Galatians. Second Edition, Enlarged. 85, 6d. 
IL Pastoral Epistles. Second Edition. In the Press. 

III. Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. los. 6d. 

IV. Thessalonians. 75. 6d. 

Peloponnesus : Notes of Study and Travel. 

By W. G. Clark, M.A. Fellow and Tutor of Trinity Col- 
lege, Cambridge. los. 6d. 

Revolutions in English History. By Ro- 
bert Vaughan, D.D. The First Volume, Eevolutions of 
Kace. 155. 

History of the Literature of Ancient Greece. 

From the Manuscripts of the late Professor K. O. Miiller. 
The first half of the Translation by the Eight Hon. Sir 
George Cornewall Lewis, Bart. M.P. The remainder 
of the Translation, and the Completion of the Work, by 
John William Donaldson, D.D. Three Volumes, Octavo. 
36s. The new portion se].»arately. Two Volumes, 205. 

Soldiers and their Science. By Captain 

Brabazon, R.A. 7s. 

Essays written in the Intervals of Business. 

The Seventh Edition. 25. 6d. 

Companions of My Solitude. The Fifth 

Edition. 35. 6d. 



^ 



Neio Boohs and New Editions , 



On the Study of Words. By Richard 

Chenevix Tkench, D.D. Dean of Westminster. The 
Ninth Edition, Revised and Enlarged. 4s. 

A Select Glossary of English Words used 

formerly in Senses diflFerent from their Present. By RiCH- 
AED Chenevix Trench, D.D. Dean of Westminster. The 
Second Edition, Revised and Improved. 4s. 

Intellectual Education, and its Influence on 

the Character and Happiness of Women. By Emily 
Shirreff. Octavo. 105. 

The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles 

the Fifth. By William Stirling, M.P. The Third Edi- 
tion. 8s. 

Man and His Dwelling Place. An Essay 

towards the Interpretation of Nature. 9s. 

Dissertations and Discussions, Political, 

Philosophical and Historical. By JoHN Stuart Mill. 
Two Volumes. Octavo. 24s. 

Of the PluraUty of Worlds. An Essay. 

The Fifth Edition. 6s. 

Bacon's Essays. With Annotations by the 

Archbishop of Dublin. The Fourth Edition. los. 6d, 

Extracts from Jean Paul Richter. Trans- 
lated by Lady Chatterton. 3s. 6d. 

Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy. By W. 0. 

S. Gilly. With Preface by the Rev. Dr. Gilly. The Third 

Edition. 5s. 

The Kingdom and People of Siam ; with a 

Narrative of the Mission to that Country. By Sir John 
Bo WRING-, F.K.S. Two Volumes, with Illustrations and 
Map. 32s. 



hy John W, Parker and Son, West Strand, 7 



The Spanish Conquest in America, and its 

Relation to the History of Slavery, and to the Government 
of Colonies. By Aethur Helps. Octavo. Volumes I. II. 
28s. Volume III, 1 6s. 

Notes on Hospitals. By Florence Night- 
ingale. The Second Edition. 5s. 

The Mediterranean ; A Memoir Historical, 

Geographical, and Nautical. By Admiral W. H. Smyth, 
D.C.L., F.R.S. Octavo. 15s. 

Lectures on Astronomy. By Henry Mose- 

LEY, M.A., F.R.S. Canon of 'Bristol. The Fourth Edition. 
3s. 6d. 

Elements of Chemistry. By William Allen 

Miller, M.D., F.R.S. Professor of Chemistry, King's Col- 
lege, London. Complete in Three Parts, with numerous 
Illustrations. £2. 6s. 6d. 

Manual of Human Microscopic Anatomy. 

By Albert Kolliker. With 289 Illustrations, Octavo. 

Lectures on the Principles and Practice of 

Physic, By Thomas Watson, M.D. Physician Extraor- 
dinary to the Queen. Fourth Edition, revised. Two 
Volumes. Octavo. 34s. 

Anatomy, Descriptive and Surgical. By 

Henry Gray, F.R.S, Lecturer on Anatomy at St, George's 
Hospital. With 363 large Woodcuts, from Original Draw- 
ings. Royal Octavo, 782 pages. 28s. 

Practical Geodesy : Chain Surveying, Sur- 
veying Instruments, Levelling, Trigonometry, and Mining ; 
Maritime, Estate, Parochial, and Railroad Surveying. By 
Butler Williams, C.E. The Third Edition, revised. 
Octavo. 8s. 6d. 



New Boohs and New Editions, 



Manual of Geographical Science. Part the 

Second, Descriptive Geography, containing 

Ancient Geography, by the Eev. W. L. Bevan, M.A, Vicar 
of Hay, Brecon. 

Maritime Discovery and Modern Geography, by the Eev. 
C. G. NicoLAT, F.E.G.S. 

With Copious Index. Octavo. 155. 

The First Part, Octavo, 10s. 6d. contains: 

Mathematical Geography, by M. O'Brien, M.A. 
Physical Geography, by D. T. Ansted, M.A., F.E.S. 
Chartography, by J. Jackson, F.E.S. 
Geographical Terminology, by Eev. C. G. NioOLAY. 

The Institutes of Justinian ; with English 

Introduction, Translation, and Notes. By Thomas C. San- 
DARS, M.A. late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. The 
Second Edition, revised. Octavo. 15s. 

Principles of Political Economy. By John 

Stuart Mill. Fourth Edition. Two Volumes. Octavo. 
30s. 

The Senses and the Intellect. The Emo- 
tions and the Will : completing a Systematic Exposition of 
the Human Mind. By Alexander Bain, M.A., Examiner 
in Logic and Moral Philosophy in the University of Lon- 
don. Octavo. 15s. each. 

Babrii Fabulse ^sopese, e Codice Manu- 

scripto Partem Secundam nunc priraum edidit Georgius 
CoRNEWALL Lewis, A.M., ^dis Christi, in Universitate 
Oxoniensi, Alumnus Honorarius. 35. 6d. 

Babrii Fabulse ^sopeae, cum Fabularum 

deperditarum Fragmentis, recensuit et breviter iUustravit 
Georgius Cornewall Lewis, M.A. 5s. 6d. 



hy John W, Parker and Son, West Strand. 9 



The Choephorae of ^schylus ; with Notes. 

By John C0NiNGT0N,M. A. Professor of Latin, Oxford. 6s. 

Notes upon Thucydides. By John G. 

Sheppard, M.A. Head Master of Kidderminster School, 
and Lewis Evans, M.A. Head Master of Sandbach 
School. Books I. and II. 85. 



The Ethics of Aristotle. By Sir Alex- 
ander Grant, Bart., M.A. The First Volume, the Essays, 
8s. 6d, The Second Volume, Books I. — VI., with Notes, 

125. 

The Pohtics of Aristotle; with Introduc- 
tion, Essays, Notes, and Index. By E. Congreve, 
M.A. 16s. 



Platonis Philebus; with Introduction, and 

Notes, Critical and Explanatory. By Charles Badham, 
D.D., Head Master of Birmingham and Edgbaston Proprie- 
tary School. 5s. 



Phaedrus, Lysis, and Protagoras of Plato, 

literally translated. By J. Wright, M.A. 4s. 6d. 



The Greek Testament; with Notes, Gram- 
matical and Exegetical. By W. Webster, M.A., of 
King's College, London; and W. F. Wilkinson, M.A., 
Vicar of St. Werburgh, Derby. Volume I., containing the 
Eour Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, 20s. 



Synonyms of the New Testament. By P. 

Chenevix Trench, D.D. Dean of Westminster. Eourth 
Edition. 5s. 

Select Private Orations of Demosthenes; 

-with English Notes. By C. T. Penrose, M.A. 4s. 



10 New Boohs and New Editions, 



The Frogs of Aristophanes; with English 

Notes. By Kev. H. P. Cookeslet, M.A. 75. 

Aristophanes. Edited^ with Notes and 

Index, by H. A. Holden, M.A., Head Master of Ipswich 
School. 15s. 

*^* The Plays separately, is. each; Notulae Criticse and 
Onomasticon. 4s. 

Greek Verses of Shrewsbury School; with 

Account of the Iambic Metre, and Exercises in Greek 
Tragic Senarii. Edited by Dr. Kennedy, Head Master. 85. 

Antigone of Sophocles, in Greek and En- 

gHsh ; with Notes. By Dr. Donaldson. 9s. 

Agamemnon of ^schylus, in Greek and 

EngHsh \ -with Notes. By J. Conington, M.A. 7s. 6d. 

^schylus translated into English Verse; 

with Notes, Life of ^schylus, and Discourse on Greek 
Tragedy. By J. S. Blackie, Professor of Greek, Edin- 
burgh. Two Volumes, 46s. 

The Alcestis of Euripides; with Notes. By 

J. H. Monk, D.D., Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. 
4s. 6d. 

Pindar; with Notes. By Dr. Donaldso:^. 

16s. 

Homeric Ballads. The Text, with Transla- 
tion in Verse, and Notes. By Dr. Maginn. 6s. 

Mtiller's Dissertations on the Eumenides of 

.^schylus. Second Edition. 6s. 6d. 

C. Cornelii Taciti Opera ad Codices Anti- 

quissimos commentario critico edidit Ekanciscus Hitter, 
Professor Bonnensis. Eour Volumes, Octavo. 28s. 



) 



hy John W. Parker and Son, West Strand. 11 



Propertius ; with English Notes. By F. A. 

P ALE Y, Editor of -iiEschylus." Octavo, los. 6d. 

Plautus : Aulularia ; with Notes. By J. 

HiLDTAED, B.D. 7s. 6d. 

Plautus : Mensechmei ; with Notes. By J. 

HiLDTAKD, B.D. 7s. 6d. 

Longer Exercises in Latin Prose Composi- 
tion ; with a Commentary and Remarks on the best mode 
of forming a correct Latin Style. By Dr. Donaldson. 
6s. 6d. 

Elements of Logic. By Bichard Whately, 

Archbishop of Dublin. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d, Octavo. 
I OS. 6d. 

Elements of Bhetoric. By Archbishop 

Whatelt. Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. Octavo, los. 6d. 

System of Logic, Batiocinative and Induc- 
tive. By John Stuart Mill. Fourth Edition. Two 
Volumes, Octavo. -255. 

An Historical and Explanatory Treatise on 

the Book of Common Prayer. By W. Gr, Humphet, B.D., 
late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Second Edition, 
enlarged. 75. 6d. 

Churchman's Guide : A Copious Index of 

Sermons and other Works, by eminent Church of England 
Divines; digested and arranged according to their subjects. 
By J. FoRSTER, M.A. Octavo. 75. 

On Public Beading : Garrick's Mode of 

Reading the Liturgy ; with Notes, and a Discourse on Pub- 
He Reading. By R, Cull, Tutor in Elocution. 5s. 6d. 

The Churchman's Theological Dictionary. 

By Robert Eden, M.A., Chaplain to the Bishop of Nor- 
wich. Demy i2mo. 5s. 



LONDON: JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 



WITH INTEODUCTIONS, NOTES, AND MEMOIRS, 

listomal, biographical anb. Critical, 
BY ROBERT BELL. 



In Volumes, 2s. 6d. each, bound in cloth. 



ANCIENT POEMS, BALLADS, AND SONGS OF 
THE PEASANTRY. 2s. 6d. 

GREENE AND MARLOWE. 2^. Sd. 

EARLY BALLADS ILLUSTRATIVE OF HISTORY, 
TRADITIONS, AND CUSTOMS. 2*. 6rf. 

BEN JONSON. 2s. 6d. 

CHAUCER. Eight Volumes, 205. 

BUTLER. Three Volumes, 7^. 66?.: 

THOMSON. Two Volumes, 5s. 

DRYDEN. Three Volumes, 7^. 6d. 

SHAKSPEARE. 2s. 6d. 

COWPER. Three Volumes. 7^. Qd. 

SURREY, MINOR CONTEMPORANEOUS POETS, 
AND BUCKHURST. 2*. M. 

SONGS FROM THE DRAMATISTS ; from the first 
regular Comedy to the close of the 18th Century. 2s. 6c?. 

WYATT. 2s. Qd. 

OLDHAM. 2o-. 6d. 

WALLER. 2s. ed. 



London : JOHN W. PARKER and SON, West Strand. 

> 



I 



